too.” He looked over at Robert. “Sorry, Captain Brentwood—”
“Call me Robert, please.”
“Yes, certainly. Well, Robert, you must forgive Rosemary’s disapproval of this Freeman chap.”
“Oh, it’s not that I disapprove, Daddy,” said Rose. “I’ve no doubt he’s a very good soldier, but he says such awful things about them.”
“That’s because they’re awful people,” said Richard. “They blatantly attack South Korea and then expect…”
Mrs. Spence excused herself from the table and they tried to steer conversation in other directions, but inevitably it seemed to come back to the war simply because it was worldwide and day by day was affecting more and more people, the
“That’s why,” said Richard, “things have quieted down a bit in Western Europe for the moment. The Bolshies want to make sure their backyard’s secure before they move into France.”
“You think they will?” asked Robert.
Richard Spence was stirring the tea bag in the pot and squeezing it on the side, something he would never have done were it not for the rationing that was getting more severe all the time. “Attack France? It’s inevitable. I’m no strategist, but if you chaps keep doing your job and more of those convoys get through, Ivan’s going to have to do something.”
Robert nodded. “The French ports.”
“Exactly. I’m afraid what we’re seeing here, in Europe right now, is a lull before the next storm.” It was when Mrs. Spence reentered the room and Richard quickly turned over the war news pages that showed the map of Europe with the three great Russian prongs deep into Germany that he came across the advertisement that had been running for several days and which, like so many, in his opinion, made absolutely no sense. He pounced on it as a diversionary tactic to shift his wife’s attention away from all the battlefront news. “Here’s this madman again.”
Rosemary leaned over to Robert. “This is Daddy’s favorite hobbyhorse. Be warned.”
Richard Spence was reading it aloud: “It is vital to the national defense that you surrender immediately all your portable hair dryers to the following address…”
“What’s it mean?” laughed Robert.
“It means,” said Richard Spence, “that some damned old fool called
“It
Mrs. Spence excused herself from the table again.
“Sorry, Mother…”
Robert forgot all about the man and the portable hair dryers and everything else about the war as he and Rosemary walked, hand in hand, across the Downs, cycled through the tree-arched byways around Martin, and fell more deeply in love.
Robert had chickened out from asking either Rosemary or her parents about marrying her but gathered his forces and did so on the second to last day of his leave.
Richard Spence was stunned. As he confessed later, it had really been Anne who, to use his potential son-in- law’s idiom, “carried the ball.” She hadn’t seemed surprised at all. But Anne Spence had already lost one child and might lose more if the Russians managed to drive through in the next great offensive and take the French ports. England would be next.
They gave their blessing to Robert and Rosemary, but Richard was still fretting on the last night before Robert would have to leave and go north to Holy Loch. In their bedroom Richard was pacing back and forth, Anne having already taken her pill, trying, despite her jangled nerves, to get some sleep. “Will you stop!” she said finally.
“Too fast,” said Richard. “It’s all too fast for my liking. Too fast!”
“Perhaps not fast enough,” his wife said quietly.
“What do you mean?” he shot back.
“None of us knows whether we’ll be here tomorrow. They might as well.”
Richard didn’t speak for a long time, and not until he was in bed did he concede the point. “Perhaps you’re right.”
In the blacked-out living room, Robert and Rosemary held each other, not saying much, neither wanting to talk about the cold fact that tomorrow he would be off again to war.
“If you want,” she began.
“No,” he said, “though I suppose you think I’m nuts.”
“I think you’re wonderful and I love you and — I’m so afraid for you.”
“Maybe we should put it off then until—”
She placed her finger on his lips. “No,” she said softly, shaking her head, resolute in her decision. “No. We’ll get married as soon as you come back. As we planned.”
There was a taping on the front door, and from the living room Robert could see the small red light that came on as whoever was outside also tried the chime bell.
“Chime doesn’t work,” said Rosemary, getting up and brushing herself down, looking presentable as she walked toward the door.
Outside, a policeman was standing beneath the porch light, rain glistening on his cape.
“Yes, Constable?”
Rosemary came back, her shapely figure outlined in the spillover of the kitchen light, one hand on her chest in relief.
“What’s up?” Robert asked.
“The drapes. Apparently there’s a slit of light from Mummy and Daddy’s room.”
As she walked down from her parents’ room and he saw her silhouetted again, this time in the faint hallway light, he didn’t think he could control it any longer. Nor could she.
He took her by the hand, and in the darkness of the living room they made love.
“Tell me…” she said, “promise me, you’ll come back.”
From the coast came the dull thudding of antiaircraft fire and the high, swishing noise of missile salvos, and he remembered Lana’s premonition of danger, her counsel to give love, to have love, while one still could.
“I’ll comeback.”
