they were there, let alone remember anything about a crash. Yes, it happens. Rut I reckon this one was different.’
‘Hut why?’
Rowland walked back into the front room and sat at the table. Cooper followed, wincing at how slowly and painfully the old man walked.
‘He’ll be dead by now, I expect,’ said Rowland.
‘I don’t know.’
‘there’s no good comes of talking ill of the dead. 1 wouldn’t want people to talk ill of me, when I’m dead. It won’t be long now, so it’s something I think of, I suppose.’
‘Apart from McTeague, there was only one survivor from that crash,’ said Cooper.
‘And has Ae said anything?’
‘No.’
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‘Loyalty, that is. The skipper could do no wrong. That was the way they were.’
‘Yes/ said Cooper. ‘You’re right, they were like that/
‘I always thought they would rind him pretty quick afterwards,’ said Rowland. ‘But they reckon he made it down to the road and hitched a lift. Dumped his flying gear somewhere and legged it.’
‘There was a lorry driver who said he picked a serviceman up on the A6 a couple of hours later and took him to Derby,’ said Cooper. ‘He never spoke much on the journey, he said. If it was McTcague, they never established how he got from Harrop to the A6.’
‘Folk round here picked servicemen up all the time,’ said Rowland. ‘That was how the lads got home when they were on leave, and back to their bases again. Evervbodv did it. Nobodv
‘ C*
would think of asking any questions.’
‘I realize that. And it was only because the lorry driver was local that he heard about the missing airman when he pot back
o o
home from his trip. But McTcague was a deserter. They would have looked for him.’
‘A deserter? Aye, maybe. But he was one among hundreds,’ said Rowland. ‘Blokes went AWOL all the time, but they kept that sort of thing as quiet as they could. It was bad for morale, you know. They couldn’t have the public thinking their brave boys were too scared to fight.’
‘It was a different time altogether, wasn’t it?’ said Cooper. ‘A foreign country.’
Rowland nodded, recognizing the reference. ‘The past is always like that, even if you lived through it.’
Cooper stayed silent for a moment, letting the old man’s memories drift slowly into his head. He knew what distant memories were like a vast sea that seemed to approach with the tide, but then merely touched the shore and withdrew again, leaving just a trace o( its passing, a damp boundary along the shoreline.
‘McTeague,’ said Rowland thoughtfully. ‘He told his crew he was going for help, but saved his own skin. Now, if he had been the one that died and the others had survived, then it would have
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been justice. There was no excuse for what he did. None. I just hope those four dead men were on his conscience for the rest of his life.’
‘Perhaps they were.’
Cooper controlled a smile, ft hadn’t taken much for the old man to break his own rule about not speaking ill of the dead.
‘Two of the crew were Poles, weren’t they?’ said Rowland.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Brave lads, those. A bit clannish, maybe, but they fought well. They hated the Germans with a venom. They hated the Russians too, mind. Good haters all round, the Polish blokes. They had their beliefs, and they stuck to them — you couldn’t have convinced them to do anything else. You never heard of any of (Aezn deserting.’
‘They were fighting for something more immediate - they wanted to get back to their homes and families in Poland. That must concentrate the mind.’
‘But they didn’t go back to their homes, a lot of them,’ said Rowland. ‘They stayed on here. That was because of the Russians. They didn’t fancy Communist Poland.’ ‘And because they married English ^irls and settled down.’
‘Aye, that’s right. Can’t blame them, I suppose. I recall the local girls seemed to like them. They were a bit glamorous, mysterious — romantic, too. Well, the lasses like that sort of thing, don’t they?’
‘I suppose the British servicemen must have resented it sometimes?’
‘Maybe so. But the Poles were better than the bloody Yanks, anyway. If I had to choose, give me the Polish lads any time. 1 was glad they were on our side, though. I wouldn’t like to have them against me.’
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘I doubt they’d soon forget a grudge.’
Rowland stared silently past his shoulder. The old man’s hands moved slowly towards each other on the table, as if they could bring comfort to each other by touching. Cooper heard the electric kettle steaming in the kitchen, then a click as it switched oft. Rowland didn’t move.
‘You know nothing about it, do you?’ he said. ‘You weren’t
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there, like I was. You didn’t have to pick up the hits. And there were lots of hits, you know. The Polish chap -
