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Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,

And take the harmless folly of the time!

We shall grow old apace, and die

Before we know our liberty.

And, as a vapour or a drop of rain,

Once lost, can ne’er be found again,

So when or you or I are made

A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drowned with us in endless night.

Then, while times serves, and we are but decaying,

Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

ROBERT HERRICK, 1648

Marshall turned to her in pleased surprise. ‘Would you really like to see it?’

‘I don’t mind,’ she said.

‘Will you listen if I tell you how I caught it?’

‘Not for very long. But I’d quite like to see it.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it in the dining-room.’

It was the first time that he had spoken to Section Officer Robertson. She had been with the Wing for about a month, but the WAAF officers kept themselves very much to themselves. They used the ante-room and lunched with the officers, but they had their own sitting-room in their own quarters to relax in. In the mess and in the ante-room they were carefully correct, and brightly cheerful, and rather inhuman; when they wanted to read the Picturegoer or mend their underwear they went to their own place to do it. It was suggested to them when they took commissions that good WAAF officers did not contract personal relationships with young men on their own station. As candidates for commissions they were serious about their work and desperately keen about the honour of the Service, and so some of them didn’t.

Marshall took the girl through into the deserted dining-room. The fish lay recumbent on its dish, its sombre colours dulled. Death had not improved it; it leered at them with sordid cruelty, and it was smelling rather strong.

Section Officer Robertson said brightly: ‘I say, what a lovely one! How much does it weigh?’

‘Eleven and a quarter pounds.’

‘Did you have an awful job landing it?’

‘Not bad. I had it on a wire trace; I was spinning for it.’

‘In this river here?’

He nodded. ‘Up at Coldstone Mill.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ she said. ‘A great tall building in the fields.’

‘That’s the place,’ he said. ‘I got it in the pool below the mill.’

‘It must have been lovely out there this afternoon,’ she said. ‘It’s been such a heavenly day.’

Recollection came to him suddenly: the black-haired girl in the grey jersey. ‘I saw a lot of WAAFs this morning out in the field doing physical jerks,’ he said. ‘I saw them from my window as I was getting up. Was that you drilling them?’

She nodded. ‘I took them out because it was so lovely. Were you just getting up then?’

He said indignantly: ‘I didn’t get to bed till three!’

She laughed. ‘Sorry.’ She turned back to the fish.

‘It really is a beauty.’ That, after all, was what she had come to say.

She had overdone it. Marshall looked at it with clearer eyes. ‘I don’t know that I quite agree,’ he said. ‘I think it looks ugly as sin, and it’s starting to pong a bit. Be better with a lemon in its mouth.’

She laughed again, relaxed. ‘Well—yes. We’d better open a window if you’re going to leave it here. What are you going to do with it?’

‘Have it for lunch tomorrow. Mollie, in the kitchen, said she’d stuff it for me. Would you like a bit?’

‘I’d love it. I’ve never eaten pike.’

‘All right—I’ll tell them.’ He hesitated. ‘I say, what’s your name? Who shall I say, to give it to?’

‘Robertson,’ she said. ‘I do signals.’

‘Mine’s Marshall,’ he said.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, I know—R for Robert.’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘R for Robert.’

She turned away. ‘I’ve got to go now. You must have had an awful lot of fun this afternoon.’

‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘I did.’

She looked up at him quickly, about to say something; then she checked herself. She turned towards the door. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ she said politely. ‘Thank you ever so much for showing it to me.’

‘Not a bit,’ said Marshall. ‘I’ll tell you when I catch the next one and you can come and see that.’

She laughed self-consciously, and went.

Marshall went back into the ante-room, lit a cigarette, picked up a copy of The Aeroplane, and sank down into a chair before the fire. He was pleasantly tired, and utterly content. He had had a lovely day in the sunshine in the middle of the winter, he had caught the biggest fish he had ever caught in his life and landed it without a net or gaff, and a young woman that he had never spoken to before had been nice to him. She had black hair that she wore in coils above her ears; she had a very clear complexion with slight colour, and a nose that turned up a bit. Section Officer Robertson. He wondered what her Christian name was.

He opened The Aeroplane, and there was a full description of the new Messerschmidt 210, with a double-page skeleton drawing. He was still poring over it twenty minutes later when Pat Johnson came in and looked over his shoulder.

‘Bloody interesting, that,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘See the barbettes?’

Marshall looked up. ‘Do any good?’ He restrained himself from blurting out his own news.

‘Ninety-three.’ Bogey was seventy-two. ‘I fluffed the twelfth and lost a ball, and then I couldn’t do a thing.’

‘Marvellous afternoon.’

‘And how. You do any good?’

‘I caught the biggest fish in the river.’

‘Better not let Ma Stevens see it, if you want to get it cooked.’

Marshall threw down his paper. ‘You don’t know who you’re talking to. When I catch fish, I catch fish.’

Flight Lieutenant Johnson looked at him doubtfully. ‘No, really—did you get one?’

Marshall heaved himself up from his chair. ‘Come and see.’

He led the way through into the dining-room and snapped on the lights. ‘God!’ said Mr Johnson. ‘What an awful-looking thing.’

‘What d’you mean? That’s a bloody fine fish. It’s eleven and a quarter pounds.’

‘Maybe. It looks like something out of the main sewer.’

Marshall glanced at the clock; it was five minutes past six. ‘I was going to buy you a noggin,’ he said, with dignity. ‘Now I shall buy myself two.’

Johnson said: ‘Has anybody else seen it?’

‘Only one of the Section Officers.’

‘Which one?’

‘The new one, with black hair.’

‘The one that runs the signallers?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘She came and had a look at it?’

‘That’s right. I said she could have a bit of it for lunch tomorrow.’

‘You did?’ Mr Johnson considered for a minute. The dead fish leered at them from the plate. ‘You offered her a bit of that?’

‘I did. And what’s more, old boy, she said she’d like to have it.’

Johnson looked at the fish again. ‘Must be in love with you.’

Section Officer Robertson walked down the road to the small house that was the WAAF officers’ quarters. She went into the little sitting-room. Mrs Stevens was at the writing-table, finishing a letter. The Section Officer said: ‘I’ve just seen the most enormous fish.’

The Flight Officer said: ‘Fish? What fish—where.’

‘It was a pike—about that long.’ She measured with her hands. ‘One of the pilots had it on a dish in the dining-room.’

‘Peter Marshall? A Flight Lieutenant? He was going fishing this afternoon.’

The girl nodded. ‘That’s the one.’ So his name was Peter. ‘He said he was going to have it for lunch tomorrow.’

‘Oh, he did, did he? Well, I did say that he could if he caught a big fish that would feed several people.’

‘It’ll do that all right,’ said Miss Robertson. ‘Probably make us all sick.’

The older woman turned back to the table to address her letter; the girl took her novel from the mantelpiece and sat down to read for an hour before supper. She lit a cigarette, opened the book where the turned wrapper marked the place, and began to read. The book failed to hold her. She sat there smoking by the fire, turning a page from time to time, reading without taking in the meaning of the words.

She disliked being at Hartley. She had held a commission for about a year after a period in the ranks; that year had been spent at a training station in the north of England. She was a north country girl from Thirsk in Yorkshire, country-bred among the moors and streams of the North Riding. She did not like it when she was transferred to Bomber Command and sent down to the south, to Oxfordshire, far from her home. She liked it less when she had been at Hartley for a week. In two raids during that week the Wing lost four machines. She was on duty for one of those raids. She attended at the briefing of the crews, handling the CO lists of frequencies and DF stations and identification signals for him to read out to them. She was on duty all the night. From midnight onwards she was in and out of the control office till dawn, trying to locate the missing two machines. When she walked back to her quarters in the grey morning it was with the knowledge that two young officers that she had messed with would not return. She was tired and cold and numb as she walked through the station to her quarters; in her bed she wept for a long while in her fatigue and misery before sleep claimed her. Next day she was pale-faced, and very quiet.

In Training Command the casualties had been very few; here they happened necessarily again and again. They did not permanently depress her because she was young; they were, rather, recurrent bouts of a sharp misery that she associated inevitably with Oxfordshire and Hartley aerodrome. Moreover, she had come alone to Hartley; for the first week or two she knew nobody and made no friends. She longed for the cheerful atmosphere of her last station, instead of the grey unhappiness of this operational place.

She sat looking, unseeing, at her book. It had been amazing to hear that young man admit that he had enjoyed his day. And what was more, he obviously had. She had been about to take him up, and ask how anyone could have fun in such an awful hole as Hartley, but she had checked herself. One didn’t say that sort of thing.

Peter Marshall. He looked as if he enjoyed doing things. He said he had been spinning for the pike. After Turin in the black night he must have had a very happy day, and, queerly, she was happy that he had.

She stirred herself to fix attention on her book, and presently she was reading it in earnest.

Marshall and Johnson dined together in the mess, and afterwards walked down with Humphries to the ‘Black Horse’. It was a fine, windy, starry night and rather cold; they walked quickly through the black lanes, arching a tracery of fine bare branches overhead. In the dark night from time to time they heard the noise of aircraft in the distance; they speculated upon whether an operation was in progress and, if so, who was doing it. They talked shop and only shop all the way down to the ‘Horse’.

In the saloon-bar there were lights and cheerful talk, and shove-halfpenny, and a table of bar billiards ticking away the sixpences. The room was full of smoke and noise. Most of the men were air crews from the station; there were one or two WAAFs with them sitting in corners rather diffidently in so masculine a place, and one or two civilians from the district. After an hour or so Marshall found himself telling one of these civilians about his pike.

‘Eleven pounds?’ the man said. He was a delicate-looking chap about thirty years of age, dressed in a golf coat and grey trousers. ‘That’s a good weight. Not many pike that weight in the Fittel.’ His words were like music to the pilot. ‘A chap at Uffington got one last year that weighed fifteen and a half pounds—that’s the biggest that there’s been in recent years.’

‘Have a beer,’ said Marshall. And when he had provided it, he said. ‘You’ve lived here a long time, I suppose?’

The other laughed. ‘Eighteen months,’ he said. ‘I come from London. I’m in the motor trade—Great Portland Street. Now I’m in tractors. I run the service depot up the road. Now and again I flog a second-hand Morris, but it’s mostly tractors.’

Marshall said: ‘A bit quiet after London?’

‘God, no. I love it down here.’

‘I should have thought it would have bored you stiff.’

The man said: ‘Well, you might think so. But—what I mean is, up in London you arse around and go to the local and meet the boys and perhaps take in a flick, and then when you go to bed you find you’ve spent a quid and wonder where in hell it went and what you got for it. Down here there’s always something to do.’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘Well—shooting, for example. I know most of the farmers because I keep the tractors turning over for them, don’t you see? And any time I want to take a gun and shoot a rabbit or a pigeon, they like to have me do it round the farm, see? And it’s all in the day’s work, because you see the tractor at the same time and have a chat with the driver and show him how to change the oil in the back axle, and then you go on and take a pot at a hare or anything that’s going, see? I got a hare last Thursday—no, Friday.’

The pilot said: ‘Do you know the people out at Coldstone Mill?’

‘Up the river—where you caught the pike? It’s on Jack Barton’s land. I don’t know the people in the mill, but I know Jack Barton.’

‘Would he let me have a go at the pigeons in the trees below the mill?’

‘Sure he would. I sold him an eight-horse-power Ford last June.’

‘If you know him, would you like to ask him for me? Or give me a chit to him?’

The man said: ‘Give me twopence for the call, and I’ll give him a tinkle in the morning.’

‘That’s awfully good of you.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Marshall. What’s yours?’

‘Ellison. If I don’t see you tomorrow night, I’ll leave word with Nellie there, behind the bar.’

They lit cigarettes. Ellison exhaled a long grey cloud. ‘There’s always something to do here. We had a fox shoot last month, all through the woods. They can’t keep them down, now that the hunt’s packed up.’

‘Are there many foxes here?’

‘The woods are stiff with them.’ The tractor salesman leaned forward impressively. ‘I tell you, I could guarantee to take you and show you a fox and a badger both within a quarter of an hour.’

The pilot, fifty miles from London, stared at him incredulously. ‘You couldn’t!’

‘I could.’ Neither of them was drunk nor anywhere near it, but their inhibitions were relaxed by beer. ‘I’d take you and show you a fox and a badger both within a quarter of an hour.’

‘Where?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘But wild?’

‘Sure—out in the woods. A wild fox and a wild badger, both within a quarter of an hour.’

‘Bet you couldn’t.’

‘Bet you ten bob I could. What about it?’

‘It’s a bet. What do we have to do?’

‘Let’s get this straight,’ said Mr Ellison. ‘If I show you a wild fox and a wild badger both within a quarter of an hour, you give me ten bob. And if I don’t, I give you ten bob.’

‘That’s right,’ said Marshall. ‘What do we do?’

‘Christ,’ said Mr Ellison, ‘the missus won’t half tear me to bits. We meet in Hartley market-place, by the cross, at four o’clock in the morning.’

‘Christmas!’ said the pilot. ‘All right. But it’s pitch dark till seven.’

‘That’s right—that’s what we want. Come on your bike. If either doesn’t turn up, he loses the ten bob.’

They discussed the detail of their plan and drank another beer or two; then it was closing time, and the ‘Black Horse’ vomited its occupants out into the dim, moonlit street. Marshall walked back to the station with his companions and went up to bed. Lying in bed before sleep, he thought that he had had a splendid day. He had got up in the middle of the morning, and it had been fine and bright and sunny. He had gone fishing with his new rod. He had caught one of the biggest fish in the river and landed it without either net or gaff. He had showed it to a girl, quite a pretty girl, and she had been nice to him about it. He was well on the way to a day’s pigeon-shooting, and he had contracted to be shown a wild fox and a wild badger both within a quarter of an hour. A splendid day.

Quite a pretty girl. He wondered how he could find out her Christian name without calling attention to his curiosity.

He slept.

He was out next morning at dispersal soon after nine. Gunnar was there already, preparing to start up; the ground crew were plugging-in the battery. Marshall walked up and inspected the fabric patches on the fuselage, still red with dope. His rear-gunner joined him.

‘Come up nice and tight, haven’t they?’ he said. ‘It’s the dry weather does it.’

Marshall straightened up. ‘They want a lick of paint now. We don’t want to go around like that.’ He liked things to be neat and tidy and good-looking, like that Section Officer.

Sergeant Phillips said: ‘I’ll get hold of some paint and give them a lick this afternoon, after we come in.’

His captain said: ‘Hear about my pike?’

The sergeant grinned: ‘Aye. The young lady I took out last night, she saw you riding into camp with it. How much did it weigh?’

‘Eleven and a quarter pounds.’

‘My young lady, she was just coming off duty in the signals office. She said they didn’t half have a good laugh to see you riding with it on your handle-bars.’

‘They’d laugh louder if you did that with a roach,’ said the pilot.

Sergeant Pilot Franck came up to them. ‘I have been thinking about what you say yesterday,’ he said. ‘It is I that should tell you how to weave. Right weave ... Left weave ... So. If every time you weave exactly in the same way, then we run up for ver’ short time.’

‘All right if I could weave the same each time. I think you’ll find I go thirty degrees one way and fifty the other.’

‘If you were German,’ said the Dane severely, ‘you would always weave the same.’

‘If I was a German,’ said the pilot equably, ‘I’d be flying a Heinkel and kicking your bloody arse because you didn’t say “Heil Hitler” before you spoke. All right, let’s have a crack at it that way, and see how it goes.’ He turned round to the crew of four, gathered around him in their flying kit. ‘We’re going to practise a few run-ups this morning, taking the gasometer at Princes Risborough as the target. Eight thousand feet.’ He turned to the wireless operator, a pale lad from Stockton-on-Tees. ‘Leech, you can do the navigation, and Phillips, you can help him if he gets it wrong.’ He did all he could to ensure that everybody understood the wireless and the navigation and the guns.

They took off presently, and went climbing away into the distance. It was nearly two hours later when they landed back again, taxied in, and wheeled round into wind at the dispersal point with a grinding squeal of brakes. In turn the engines died and came to rest.

Marshall stood up beside Gunnar, who had landed the machine, with Sergeant Phillips’ notebook in his hand. ‘Take out runs three and seven, when you weren’t on,’ he said. ‘The rest go fifty-two seconds, fifty-four, forty-four, forty-four, forty-one, forty-five, thirty-nine, forty-two, thirty-nine. It’s not bad.’

They discussed their practice for a few minutes, standing crouched and cramped beside the pilot’s seat. Then they got out of the machine down on to the concrete beneath the nose, slipped off their harness, and stretched cramped limbs. The corporal fitter went into a huddle with Sergeant Pilot Franck over the engine temperatures and pressures. Marshall turned to the fuselage and had another look at the patches. Sergeant Phillips walked up and joined him.

‘Nice and tight,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll get a drop of paint this afternoon.’

The pilot nodded. ‘When you spoke of your young lady, that saw me with that fish—did you say she was a signaller?’

‘Telephonist,’ the other said. ‘Works on the board all day.’

‘Does she come under that Section Officer Robertson?’

‘That’s right. A new Section Officer with black hair.’

Marshall said carefully: ‘I knew a Flying Officer called Robertson at my last station, who had a sister called Sheila who was a WAAF Section Officer. I was wondering if this was her. Ask your young lady if she knows her Christian name, will you?’ He spoke with elaborate carelessness that did not deceive the sergeant for one moment.

Phillips said: ‘Oh aye, I’ll find that out for you.’

The pilot said: ‘Thanks. It was just an idea I had.’ He left the machine and, carrying his parachute and harness, walked down to the control office.

Half an hour later he was in the mess with a pint of beer. The ante-room gradually filled before lunch. The Wing Commander came in, and Marshall crossed the room to him, beer can in hand.

‘May I go off the station at four o’clock tomorrow morning, sir?’ he said. ‘I’ll be back before breakfast.’

‘What for?’

Marshall grinned. ‘I met a chap in the ‘Black Horse’ last night who said he’d take me to see a fox. A fox and a badger, both within a quarter of an hour. I’ve got a bet on that he can’t.’

The Squadron Leader (Admin.), a grey-haired man called Chesterton with wings from the last war, laughed sharply. ‘Lady into fox?’ he said.

The pilot flushed a little. ‘No, sir. Honest-to-god fox—beast what smells.’ There was general laughter in the group.

The CO said: ‘Smell him when he comes back, Chesterton; let me know if it’s fox or Coty.’

The laugh grew loud. Section Officer Robertson turned to see what it was all about. She saw Marshall talking to the Wing Commander in the centre of a laughing group. She thought that it was something to do with the pike, the pike that she was to have a bit of for her lunch. She drew near, smiling at their mirth without understanding it, wanting to know what was going on.

The CO said: ‘A badger and a fox? Where are you going for that?’

‘I don’t know—somewhere in the woods. It’s got to be before dawn. I said I’d meet him in Hartley at four o’clock—if that’s all right with you, sir.’

The Squadron Leader said: ‘I don’t believe there are any badgers here. Plenty of foxes. But it’s too close to London for a badger.’

The CO said: ‘It’s all right with me. Better go to bed early, or else get in some sleep tomorrow. We may be on the job tomorrow night.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Chesterton said: ‘I’ll have the guard warned that you’ll be going out.’

The pilot turned away, and found himself face to face with Miss Robertson. She said: ‘Did you say you were going to see a badger?’ There was a quality of breathless interest in her voice.

Marshall grinned. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Chap in the “Black Horse” said he’d show me a badger and a fox both within a quarter of an hour, and I bet him ten bob that he couldn’t.’

‘They don’t come out in daylight, do they? Badgers, I mean.’

‘I don’t think so. I think they stooge around all night.’

‘Where are you going for it?’

The pilot glanced down at her face turned up to his. In one fleeting moment in the crowded ante-room he saw the colour in her cheeks, her parted lips, her eyes bright and sparkling. He withdrew his glance quickly, because of the crowd about them. He had not known before that she was beautiful.

‘I don’t know,’ he said casually. ‘Somewhere in the woods.’

‘Oh.’ She thought for a minute. ‘Will there be a moon?’

Marshall said: ‘Yes, if it’s a fine night. The moon rises about two o’clock.’

She said: I think it will be fine. Three-tenths cloud or something. We got the message in this morning.’

There was a little pause; slowly the animation died out of her face. ‘It’ll be awfully interesting,’ she said. Queerly, it seemed to Marshall that she was disappointed about something, or depressed. Perhaps her boy friend was giving her the run around. If that were so, it was a shame; she was a nice kid.

‘I didn’t forget about that bit of pike,’ he said kindly. ‘I told them in the kitchen, and I told them to give Ma Stevens a bit, too.’

She said: ‘You’re sure you can spare it?’

He said: ‘Lady, I eats hearty, but not eleven and a quarter pounds.’

She laughed. ‘I suppose not.’

He moved away from her, though he would rather have stayed talking to her and have taken her in to lunch, in the hope of seeing her look again as she had looked when he was telling her about the badger. He had lived in a mess too long to risk being seen to talk much with one WAAF officer. In a society predominantly masculine with just a few young women, gossip ran rife; Marshall had caused embarrassment to too many young men from time to time to risk himself as target. He went in to lunch with Pat Johnson, choosing strategically a seat that gave him a view of Section Officer Robertson eating pike, twenty feet away.

He was relieved to notice that she ate it all, in happy distinction to Mr Johnson, who took one mouthful, put it out again, said a rude word, and went and fetched himself a plate of beef.

Marshall watched Section Officer Robertson covertly all through the meal, timing the progress of his lunch to synchronise with hers while talking to Humphries about accelerated take-offs. He followed her out into the ante-room for coffee. He asked her how she had liked the pike.

‘I liked it,’ she replied. ‘It’s different to most other fish.’

‘So Pat thought,’ he said. ‘He told the maid to give it to the cat, if the cat would have it.’

‘What a shame!’

‘I’ll go out this afternoon and try and get another,’ Marshall said.

She turned to him. ‘Mr Marshall, do let me know what happens about your badger. You must be awfully well in with the country people here, to get a chance like that.’

He shook his head. ‘This chap sells motors in Great Portland Street.’

She wrinkled up her forehead in perplexity. ‘Sells motors? But you have to know the country frightfully well to find a badger.’

‘I know that.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, it should be rather fun.’

It was the second time that he had spoken to her about fun at Hartley aerodrome. She dropped her eyes. ‘Tell me about it when you come back,’ she said quietly.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you all the lowdown on the sordid side of country life, lunch-time tomorrow.’

She took her coffee and the Daily Express, and crossed the room to a chair. Presently she got up, and went out to the signals office, and sat down at her bare deal table garnished with messages and signal forms in bulldog clips.

She was deeply disappointed. She was a country girl from the North Riding; her father was an auctioneer in Thirsk. Her uncle was rector of Thistleton, a little village in the hills near Helmsley; she knew country matters very well. She had a considerable knowledge of foxes; she had followed the hunt on various farm ponies, and she had crept out several times into the woods to stalk a vixen playing with her cubs before the earth; for one of these expeditions she had a blurred Brownie photograph to show. In all her experience of the country she had never seen a badger. This expedition in the moonlight night before the dawn was in her line exactly; she ached to be going out with Marshall in the morning. The very suggestion had been like a breath of fresh air to her, a reminder of a sane, decent, country world that she had left behind her in the north.

That was not possible, of course. A good WAAF officer, mindful of the honour of the Service, did not get out of bed at four o’clock in the morning to go roaming in the moonlit woods with an officer from her station. She spent an appreciable portion of her time endeavouring to restrain her aircraftwomen from that sort of thing, though it was true that none of them had ever thought to plead that they had a date with a badger.

She stared disconsolately at the signal pad before her. The fault, she felt, in some way lay within herself. Hartley was a rotten station to be in, but there was fun to be got mere, good country fun, if you knew your way about and had the wit to find it. Peter Marshall seemed to have a lovely time; the pike yesterday, and now this ‘fox and badger in a quarter of an hour’ business. All she had managed so far was to go for rides upon her bicycle and, since the country was flat and she came from the hills, she didn’t think much of that.

It was a very quiet afternoon, with little flying in progress and nothing in particular happening. She took a little walk around her duties; passing the main telephone switchboard she looked in to see how L.A.W. Smeed was getting on. L.A.W. Smeed was sitting with head-phones on her hair and microphone upon her chest eating her black-market sweets and knitting a jumper for her next leave. She slipped the knitting down beside her chair when her officer appeared in the doorway.

‘Afternoon, Elsie,’ said Miss Robertson. ‘Let’s see your book.’

The girl handed her the log-book, written in pencil between ruled pencil columns; there were not many calls upon it. ‘Not very busy,’ said Miss Robertson.

‘No, ma’am. Real slack it’s been today.’

They chatted for a few minutes about the work. Then L.A.W. Smeed said. ‘Mind if I ask a question, ma’am?’

‘What is it?’ said Miss Robertson. She knew what it was likely to be: something to do with late leave, an attempt to short-circuit Flight Officer Stevens.

Elsie said: ‘Your name’s a funny one, isn’t it, Miss Robertson? Some of the girls were having an argument.’

The Section Officer said: ‘Gervase. It’s not a very common one.’

‘Gervase. I never knew anyone called that before. I think it’s ever so nice. What’s the other one, Miss Robertson—the L?’

‘Laura. There are plenty of those about.’

‘I know ever so many Lauras,’ said the telephonist, ‘but I never met a Gervase before. I do think that’s pretty. Are there many girls called Gervase where you come from?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s a Yorkshire name particularly.’

‘Is that where your home is, Miss Robertson? I live in Clapham, just by Clapham South Underground.’

The officer said: ‘I come from a little place called Thirsk, in Yorkshire. But I don’t think Gervase is a Yorkshire name at all. Mother got it out of a book—Tennyson, or something.’

The telephone buzzed, and put an end to further confidences. Miss Robertson went on with her round.

Out in the country, by the river below Coldstone Mill, Marshall was assembling his little rod. He worked more absently than on the previous day, his mind equally divided between fishing and Section Officer Robertson. He wondered if the red plug would do the trick again or whether he should use a narrow-bodied thing that simulated a little alcoholic fish, unable to swim very well. He wondered if Section Officer Robertson really had a boy friend who was doing her dirt. It was quite possible that she had got mixed up with somebody at her last station; indeed, it would be rather queer if she had not, being as attractive as she was. Anyway, she was going to get mixed up with somebody on this one; he knew that very well already.

He wondered whether it was any good casting to the same place in the millpond for another pike, and he wondered very much what her name was. He had already discovered her initials from the file of postings to the station. He wondered how old she was; he was twenty-two himself and he was pretty sure that she was younger than that. If he could find out how long she had been a Section Officer, that might give him a line. But he could ask her that.

He began casting in a desultory way over the running water, but soon gave it up, and sat down on a stone and lit his pipe. Over his head the pigeons flapped and fluttered in and out of the trees, small clouds sailed slowly past on a blue sky, and once an early bee flew past his ear. Presently he got up and, smoking still, began to walk down the river, rod in hand. It was no good flogging the same place two days running, he thought.

He passed a couple of aircraftmen fishing where Gunnar had been on the previous day, and went on towards a pool at the next weir. Just above the pool he came on Sergeant Phillips sitting on a little stool, his float between the weed beds in mid-stream. The pilot paused beside him.

‘Done any good?’ he asked.

The sergeant shook his head. ‘Don’t seem to be nowt stirring. I reckon Gunnar must ha’ caught them all yesterday.’

‘How many did he get?’

‘Four.’

The pilot glanced back up the river. ‘I told Gunnar to see if he could borrow Sergeant Pilot Nutter’s little rifle, and we’d have a crack at those pigeons up by the mill.’

Aye, he was talking about that. He’s got the gun.’

‘We’ll have a crack at them one day.’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Make a change to get a pigeon for tea.’

Marshall left him, and went on to the weir. He cast for an hour above it and below but rose nothing; either there were no pike there or it was an off day when they would not feed. Presently he walked slowly back up-stream towards the mill, casting here and there as he went. At the mill he took down his rod, got on his bicycle, and rode back to the station.

He had packed up early with a vague hope that if he got back to the mess by half past four he might, quite accidentally, see Section Officer Robertson drinking a cup of tea. He did not find her there; either she was having tea in her office or else in her own quarters. He lingered for some little time until hope died; then he went up to his room to write his weekly letter to his mother.

He got out his pad, squared his shoulders at the deal table at the end of his bed, and began to write. He never knew what to say. His mother, he knew, lived each day in an agony of fear for him, a gnawing pain that she had suffered and concealed for nearly two years now. He could not write to her about the difficult raids, the ones that had not been so good, and he had long ago exhausted all that could be said about the uneventful ones. He wrote:

My darling mother,

We had a lovely flight the night before last, over to Turin and back. The moon got up as we were getting to the Alps and it was frightfully pretty with snow on the mountains and lakes and everything. They don’t have any black-out there and you could see the street lamps in the towns, and cars going along the road and everything. We went up to seventeen thousand and it was frightfully cold, but it was dry and there wasn’t any icing. I wore your leather waistcoat under everything else, and it was fine.

He paused, and then he wrote:

I’ve seen Switzerland three times now and I’d love to go there one day for a holiday, ski-ing and skating. I don’t think I want to go to Italy much.

He paused again; there really wasn’t much else to say about flying. He went on presently:

I caught a pike yesterday on one of the plugs, in the river here; eleven and a quarter pounds, it was awful fun. I brought it back and a lot of us had it for lunch today, stuffed.

Dare he say that Section Officer Robertson had liked it? Better not. He went on:

The biggest one caught for years was only fifteen pounds, so mine was a pretty good show. I got it on the new rod with the multiplying reel; it’s fine to use. A chap I met says he can show me a fox and a badger both in a quarter of an hour and we’re going out to try it tomorrow very early, about four. Next week I hope we shall be able to go pigeon-shooting.

He drifted into reverie. G.L.... Gertrude Lucy? He took up his fountain-pen again and wrote:

I like being on this station more and more; there are some awfully nice people here. Has Bill got his second pip yet? All my love to Daddy and to you, darling.

Peter.

It exactly filled the double-page, which was his statutory length. He read it through and put it in the envelope, and took it downstairs to the post.

He rang up Ellison and confirmed their meeting in the morning; then he retired into the ante-room with a can of beer. He was called to the telephone five minutes before dinner.

‘Marshall speaking,’ he said. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Sergeant Phillips here, sir. I don’t think that Section Officer can be the one you meant. What did you say her name was? The one that was the sister of the chap you knew?’

Damn it, what had he said? Cynthia? Sylvia? What on earth was it?

‘Sylvia,’ he said. ‘It was just a thought I had, that it might be the same. What’s this one called?’

‘You said the name was Sheila this morning, Cap. I suppose he had two sisters in the WAAFs. But it’s not the same family at all.’

Marshall said very slowly and emphatically: ‘What—is—this—one—called?’

‘Gervase, Cap. Uncommon sort of name.’ He spelled it out. ‘Gervase Laura. Did your friends live in Thirsk?’

Marshall said: ‘No, they lived near—er—Reading.’

‘Can’t be the same, Cap. This one comes from Thirsk in the North Riding.’

‘Oh well—thanks.’

‘Okay.’

Marshall put down the receiver, conscious that he had had his leg pulled by the sergeant. Still he had got the information that he wanted.

He went to bed early that night, having thoughtfully secured a packet of sandwiches from the kitchen. He ate these as he was dressing in the middle of the night. At ten minutes to four he was riding out of the station on his bicycle, yawning and rather cold, and wondering if it was really worth it.

He met Mr Ellison, a dim shadow with a bicycle, in Hartley market as they had arranged. ‘Couple of bloody fools, we are,’ said Mr Ellison. ‘This isn’t worth ten bob of anybody’s money. Let’s get going.’

‘How far?’

‘Seven or eight miles. Kingslake Woods, over by Chipping Hinton.’

They rode off down the main road leading north. The sky was practically clear; a half-moon was rising, making it light enough to see the detail of the countryside. They rode on steadily for nearly an hour, growing warm with the exertion. In the end Ellison slowed down.

‘Steady a moment,’ he said. ‘There’s a gate just here somewhere.’

They found the gate and left their bicycles inside it, and went on up a muddy track that wound slowly uphill through the woods. The leafless branches made a fine tracery over their heads, screening the white clouds drifting past the moon. There was little wind; the woods were very quiet. From time to time a rabbit shot away before them; once an owl swooped low over their heads with a great whirr of wings.

Ellison led on steadily for a quarter of an hour or more. Once Marshall asked: ‘How in hell do you know where to go?’

The motor salesman said: ‘I came here last month, that time when we were shooting foxes. Then old Jim Bullen brought me here again to see a badger, because I told him that I’d never seen one.’ He paused, and then he said: ‘They’re a bit scarce where I come from, around Great Portland Street.’

The pilot nodded. ‘There aren’t so many down in Holborn, where I used to work.’

In the end they paused on the edge of a clearing, full of dappled moonlit shadows. Ellison whispered. ‘This is the place—keep damn quiet now. If we have any luck we’ll see the badger here.’ He pointed across the clearing to a little earthy cliff. ‘There’s an earth there.... See? And there’s another one about a hundred yards along.... There.’

Marshall strained his eyes, but could see nothing but the dappled moonlight. The wind was blowing to them from the earth; it was as good a place to watch as any. ‘Take your word for it,’ he whispered. ‘How long shall we have to wait?’

Ellison said: ‘It must be close on six. We’ll give it an hour before we call it off.’

‘We’ll be bloody cold by then.’

They settled down upon a log to wait and watch, motionless. The silvery radiance that filled the clearing, ebbing and flowing with the passing clouds, was nothing novel to Marshall; he knew moonlight very well. For many hours he had sat patterned in black and white within the moonlit cockpit, uneasy and vigilant for night fighters; home to him was the appearance of a moonlit landfall seen through gaps of cloud, faint, silver, ethereal cliffs and fields. He had seen so much moon in the last fifteen months that he had absorbed a little of its serenity, perhaps. At the beginning of his career as a bombing pilot he had been confused and distressed and bewildered by the casualties, by the deaths of friends that he had known and played with in their leisure hours. The casualties had less effect upon him now; they were things that happened, that must be accepted as they came. One day he would probably go too; the thought did not distress him very much. Life in the RAF was real, and exciting, and great fun—better by far than the life he had known in his insurance office before the war. Everything had to end some time. It was undesirable to be killed, but it was also undesirable to go creeping back into the office when the war was over.

In the quiet glamour of the night his mind was full of Section Officer Robertson. Gervase, Gervase Laura Robertson. Thinking of her, he discovered his own mind. She was attractive, and neat, and pretty as a picture; she was a friendly girl and, he thought, rather an unhappy one. He wished very much that he knew what it was that worried her, whether it was some prune that she had left at her last station. He liked her very much indeed; he knew himself already to be half in love with her. Quite suddenly he realized that much of the fun of this attempt to see a badger and a fox within a quarter of an hour would be in telling her about it.

A stave out of the theme song of a picture came into his mind and set him smiling at his own foolishness—