71

Sub-Lieutenant Patrick MacQueen arrived at Paddington Station in London in the middle of a hit-and-run air raid. The entire city was blacked out, but the sky above it was an awesome spectacle of pyrotechnics. Searchlights waved over the rooftops and reflected off the overhanging clouds. Long lines of tracer bullets arched into the heavens and every anti-aircraft gun in the county was blazing merrily into the night. The sullen crump of distant explosions in the east could be felt through one’s feet, and shrapnel fell into the deserted streets. The crowds hovered in dark doorways, and some went to the air-raid shelters.

The train had been crowded and smoky, and it was delayed and sidetracked for other trains with a higher priority of soldiers or munitions. At one stage a bandsman from the Coldstream Guards had complained about his officers’ hairstyles and showed Patrick how he kept the front of his cap high with a knife blade. They had stopped at Exeter and then at Taunton. At the wrecked Paddington Station, a lonely stationmaster carrying a lantern had escorted Patrick through heavy blackout curtains, into a basement canteen. There he ate a tasteless sandwich and drank a mug of tea. This cellar was pillared with a vaulted ceiling; the building above it had been demolished by bombs. Not a ray of light escaped into the night, but that basement was crowded with men in uniform carrying haversacks and knapsacks and gunnysacks. They were all in transit, going somewhere.

Patrick lugged his suitcases into the lobby of the Great Northern Hotel and breathed a prayer of gratitude to the transport officer. The hotel was attached to the station, which was crowded with jostling figures trying to catch the right train or make connections. Against the backdrop of the air raid, the scene was bedlam. The desk clerk had a powdering of fine plaster dust on the top of his head. He looked at Patrick’s reservation form.

“You’ll have to wait, sir,” said the desk clerk. “We can’t get anyone to leave until it’s over.”

Patrick slumped into a stuffed chair, put his feet onto the suitcases, and was asleep in an instant. He was awakened by someone poking him in the ribs. He looked up at a young army captain wearing a shiny leather Sam Browne belt and glittering buttons.

“I say,” said the captain, “are you looking for a room?”

Patrick had never seen such an impeccable soldier, except possibly one he recalled from the Royal Canadian Regiment. This young warrior made Patrick feel like a tramp. “Yes, I am,” replied Patrick.

“Fine, that’s jolly good,” said the captain. “The manager fella has got two adjoining rooms with one bathroom. If you don’t mind we’ll share?”

“Fine with me,” said Patrick. He slowly stood up, his back aching from the wooden railway bench.

“Edwin Pym, Army Service Corps.” The captain placed his swagger stick under his left arm and offered his hand. Patrick grasped the firm dry hand.

“I’m Patrick MacQueen from Canada. Is it always so noisy around here?” he asked with a laugh.

The “all-clear” sirens were wailing their banshee cry, a dominant note of mid-century Europe. The two men signed the register, and each was given a key. They then carried the luggage up three flights of stairs, assisted by an old porter. Patrick’s bags were heavily loaded with cosmetics, chocolate bars, and American cigarettes. The captain carried a small haversack over one shoulder. They both carried respirators in awkward pouches, in case Hitler decided to bomb them with gas, or they decided to bomb Hitler.

“I’m down from Northumberland for a meeting at the War Office,” said Captain Pym. “Are you on business?”

“I’m on leave,” said Patrick. “It’s my first trip to London.” The porter opened a door and walked through the bathroom to open another door.

“Really!” said the captain, as though that was an unfortunate colonial oversight. “We’ll have to find some dancing girls.”

Patrick seemed destined to fall in with archetypes, which only happens when one is travelling alone. He smiled and looked at his shiny new friend. “That would be nice,” he answered. He gave the porter a half-crown, which was too generous for a man of the world.

“All these Yanks in town spoil it,” complained Captain Pym. “They’ve got too much money. I want to marry a girl in the Wrens, but she’s got her eye on a Baronet. They’ll do anything for a title.”

“My ship is in Londonderry,” said Patrick, derailing the captain’s conversational thrust. “I flew down in a bomber.”

“Good show!” exclaimed the captain. “I have to see my general first thing in the morning. It’s hush-hush.”

The framework was now established. Patrick produced a bottle of navy rum, which came from Demerara and was dark and strong. The captain proposed a toast to Lord Nelson, and the sub-lieutenant remembered Lord Wellington. They drank, and the captain choked.

“God!” he spluttered. “That’s strong!”

Patrick took a warm bath, then shaved and put on a clean white shirt. They stepped out into the scarred city, where a half moon hung in the sky. There were no street lamps, and the shadows were ebony, casting jagged patterns across the moonlit streets from the tottering remains of walls blasted by the air raids. The few cars had shrouded headlamps and proceeded slowly across the silver and black checkerboard of London. Barrage balloons floated silently above them in the moonlight, like hovering ghosts. The sounds of a Strauss waltz faintly edged out of a doorway and lost itself in the dark side streets, accompanied by their steel heels ringing on the pavement. A sailor walked past with a woman on his arm smelling like a perfumed tigress. In every cranny of this old city there was nothing but the war. It was its own creation…it spread and eddied and filled the crevices. It was the master of all, and everyone was its servant. It stirred and slept and exploded, but it was always there.

“I love the army—it is my mistress,” said Captain Pym. “What else is there for a fellow like me? I want to grow old and retire as a brigadier with a white moustache and a belly full of port.”

Patrick stopped and laughed, shaking his head in admiration. “God!” he exclaimed joyfully. “No wonder the empire hangs together! Nobody could beat chaps like you!” He laughed again.

“I’m quite serious, old boy,” said the captain. “Can you imagine me selling stocks and bonds? That’s what the baronet does!”

“You’ll be the proconsul of a thousand miles of desert,” prophesized Patrick MacQueen. “You’ll rule it from a camel, like Lawrence of Arabia, and your tribute will be paid in dancing girls.”

“Bravo!” said the captain. “Right now, I could do with another drink of rum.”