Rex and Johnnie, who are pilots, and Scottie, who is the navigator, and I, who do not belong to a crew at all, went into the bar of the Grenadier. It was early and Joe was wiping the counter, which was not dirty, with a bright yellow duster.
“What shall it be?” Rex said. “Li tale?”
“Li tale it is,” we said.
“That’s four li tales,” Rex said. “And you, Joe?”
“Thank you,” Joe said, “a bitter.”
Joe drew the four light ales and set them on the bar. He drew the bitter and held it in his hand.
“Cheers,” we said.
“Cheers, boys,” said Joe.
We drank. Joe drank too and then automatically polished the clean brown counter with the duster. There was no one else in the bar except a young man without a hat, with a long scarf of many colours round his neck. The weather was very mild and I do not know why he was wearing the scarf, except that perhaps he was suffering from something.
“Hello,” he said. He was drinking a long dark beer.
“Good evening,” we said.
“You fellows from Stanton?” he said.
We were from Stanton but we did not say anything.
“That’s a big station now,” he said.
We did not say anything.
“How big a station would it be?” he asked.
Rex and Johnnie and Mac were all drinking and could not speak.
“Four or five hundred?”
“Possibly. There are a great many W.A.A.F.,” I said.
“Do you operate Stirlings and Wellingtons from there,” he said, “or only Stirlings?”
“We have quite a few Moths,” I said.
“That’s a kite I like,” Rex said. Rex is a Canadian and comes from Saskatchewan. At that time he had done six Berlin trips, four daylights on Brest, two to Turin, and some others. “That’s a kite you can have fun in. You get ’way up there and have no one to talk to but yourself.”
“In a bomber,” the young man said, “it’s very different.”
“Four more li tales,” Scottie said.
The young man drank his beer and moved closer up the bar.
“Have this one with me,” he said, “won’t you?”
“Thanks,” we said. “We have one coming up.”
The young man slung one end of his scarf over his shoulder. I looked at his face and his hands. They were very pink and very clean and very healthy and it seemed to me that, after all, he could not be suffering from anything. I could only think that perhaps he was studying something instead.
“That was a nasty affair you had this week,” he said.
We did not say anything.
“Do aircraft often catch fire? I mean, in that way?”
We did not say anything.
“Do you suppose the crash rate over here is higher than the losses over there?” he said.
Perhaps we did not feel very talkative, but once more we did not speak.
“What happens when people crash?” the young man said. “I mean, what’s it feel like in the mess — when you hear?”
I honestly wanted to answer him. I honestly had something to say to him that was clear and important and unmistakable, but I could not frame it into words.
“It must be awfully embarrassing,” he said.
“Awfully,” I said.
“There is nothing much you can say,” he said.
“No,” I said, “there is nothing much you can say.”
Rex and Johnnie and Scottie were staring into their beer. Rex has come all the way from Canada because he hates something; he has a farm in Saskatchewan and a young wife who, in the picture he carries in his wallet, has a face that is brave and shining in the snow. Scottie is thirty-five and has children and says: “I’m not a young man any more,” because he hopes you will tell him he is not too old. Johnnie is very young and has blue clear eyes that are cool and glassy and far distant. Only his flying life has begun.
“It must be very interesting to see the different reactions,” the young man said:
“To what?”
“Well, you know.”
“No.”
“The times when people don’t come back. There must be a feeling in the mess — a sort of — well, you know.”
“Sort of,” I said.
I do not know if, for a moment or two, he went on talking. I kept looking at the long loose scarf, that seemed to have no purpose, and the pink clean hands that clasped the mug of beer.
“You must have had a lot of people go from that station,” he said.
“What do you expect?” I said. “There’s a war.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s it,” he said. “I suppose they must know.”
We did not say anything. Joe came along the bar, wiping the counter with the yellow duster. He looked at us and we looked at him. The foam had broken in the glasses and the beer looked flat and dead.
“Now you will have this one with me, won’t you?” the young man said.
We did not look at each other and we did not drink.
We know when we have had enough.