Morning Flight
Friday, 18 August 1939, 6.30 a.m.
As the aircraft lifted from the ground, Stork Castell felt the familiar jolt of the wheels over the rough grass cease and a wave of relief swept over him. Behind him, the sun was rising over the long stretch of chalk downs. Glancing out over the edge of the cockpit, he saw the shadow of his plane separate and stretch away. In moments he was climbing high over Farrowcombe and able to turn his gaze southwards across the Chase, all the way to the Purbeck Hills and beyond to the sea. Despite the scarf he felt the chill wind find and envelop his body beneath his jacket as though he were ducking under the waves at the start of a dip in the sea. He shivered, but after the hot, sticky night and the exertion of pushing the plane clear of its hangar, the cold was deliciously fresh and invigorating. Breathing in deeply he smelt the sweet morning freshness crisp in his nostrils but also the musty mixture of oil, wood and leather that was unique to the DH.4’s cockpit.
The Rolls-Royce Eagle growled gutturally with the strain of the climb, but at three hundred feet above the ridge, he eased back the throttle, set the trim to adjust the pitch of the propeller and banked away to the south in a wide arc until he could see the spire of Salisbury Cathedral some ten miles to the east. Straightening, he set his course towards the familiar marker, with the long line of chalk to his left.
It really was a fine morning – a sky clear and cerulean already, the rolling country below finely contoured by shadows from the rising sun. Not for the first time in his life, Stork thanked God both that he had never lost his love of flying and that he’d had the foresight to buy his DH.4 once the war was over. While many of the RAF’s aircraft had been retained for post-war service, the DH.4 had been withdrawn, and with more than they had known what to do with and no obvious buyers overseas, the Air Ministry had sold them off. Stork had bought his complete with a spare Eagle engine and a box of spares, and renamed it ‘Dorothy’; it seemed like a good way of putting a bit of distance between it and its original martial function. And all for twenty-five pounds – a lot of money back in 1919, which he’d been able neither to afford nor justify, yet he’d not once regretted his rash purchase. Of course, having the farm made all the difference. His family had land and farm buildings and that meant somewhere to store the machine and the space to operate it. He felt the occasional pang of guilt that he’d seen out that last summer of the war at Larkhill, but then would remind himself he had spent much of the previous three years flying over the front lines: three years of being shot at, of witnessing friends and fellows burning alive, being riddled to pieces and colliding. He’d flown over the hellish gash of no man’s land, tangled in heart-stopping fights across the sky, had been forced to kill his fellow man, and taken part in much of the heaviest air fighting of the entire war. Somehow, he’d suffered barely a scratch; it had always seemed a miracle that this should have been so, yet by May 1918, just as his darling Tess had been born, he had realized his tank of courage had been spent and that if he was kept at the front any longer he might well break entirely.
And then, as he had wondered how he could solve this predicament without killing himself, he had been posted. Perhaps it had been the new medical officer. Or just pure and simple luck. At any rate, he’d been sent home and given a job instructing at Larkhill, only fifteen miles or so from Alvesdon. It had been an August morning in 1918, not so very different from this one today, that he’d flown across the plain south-west to the valley and over Alvesdon Farm. He’d whooped for joy to be alive then: to see the home he loved so deeply, the farm, the folds of the chalk downs and their combes, the village nestling in the heart of the valley; to know that he had a wife he adored, a son and daughter to whom he would return.
He flew back towards Alvesdon, the fourth village along the valley, lined on either side by the chalk downs. There was the church, its tower poking up from amid the trees, and the River Chalke, snaking its way through the water meadows, silvery in the morning light. The dairy herd stood in the meadow and in a group between some willows by the water’s edge, while at the foot of the steeper line of chalk to the north, the fields were filled with stooks, the harvest almost complete ‒ and before the end of the third week in August too. They’d not managed that on the farm for a dozen years or more.
It all looked so peaceful, so placid, so stunningly beautiful, and his heart ached to think this Eden was threatened once more. He could hardly bear to contemplate what another war would mean for his children. Edward was already in the Territorial Army and soon, inevitably, would be called up, his time studying art at the Slade cut short and with it, he supposed, any career as an artist. Wilf was already in the RAF and would be among the first to face the firing line should it come to war. Tess was in London, working for the War Office, and would not be immune if bombers targeted the capital. Many of the farm boys would go as well, torn from their families. His anger rose. He just felt so damned impotent.
Then he cringed as he remembered how pleased with himself he’d been when he’d told his parents he’d joined up back in 1914. His mother had not been able to hide her horror or her tears, the colour draining from her face and her lip trembling as she’d tried to speak. But he’d made it through – all three brothers had: John and even Denholm. A miracle, when so many families had suffered such terrible losses. But was it one that could be repeated? He swallowed hard and tried to push such thoughts from his mind.
Right now there was much besides to trouble him. Decisions about the farm. Glancing over he could see the gyro-tiller on the top of the southern ridge of chalk, evidence of its toil all around: stretches of exposed soil and chalk where decades-old furze had been dramatically ripped up; next year, it would be covered with crops.
Change was coming and with it a lot of wastage, and the overthrowing of the truly mixed farm he’d nurtured so carefully over the past decade since he’d taken over. He was forty-six and, he had accepted some years earlier, well into his middle age. There was a touch of grey in his dark brown hair, a few lines on his brow and at the sides of his pale blue eyes. He was a man who no longer craved change, or adventure. What excited him now was the certitude of his life, of improving the farm, of knowing his family was safe and happy and supported. He loved his younger brother, John, his sister-in-law, Carin, and their children almost as much as his own. The family brewery had grown hand in hand with his development of the farm and now that future, that constant in his life, seemed uncertain. He worried for them all but he especially worried for the children. If anything happened to them it would break his heart. Don’t think about it, he told himself. Put it out of your mind. It hasn’t happened yet. War had not broken out. Perhaps good sense would prevail, and peace be preserved. Perhaps.
And then there was his father. For much of the summer they had been rubbing along quite well for once, but trouble was brewing. It always did eventually. The threat to their uneasy peace this time was his father’s conviction that he was going to be asked to join the Wiltshire War Agricultural Executive Committee: he had spoken to Richard Stratton, the chairman-in-waiting for Wiltshire, who had – apparently ‒ told him as much.
‘Really?’ Stork had said.
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ his father had replied. ‘I was a district committee member in the last show, so I know the form, and I’ve the knowledge, experience and, more to the point, time.’
But Stork knew this couldn’t be true because he had a letter from Richard Stratton sitting on his desk at Farrowcombe, asking him to join the county War Ag if and when Britain should find itself at war. It was inconceivable that two men from the same family should be asked; his deafness notwithstanding, his father tended to hear what he wanted to hear.
Stork had not told his father about his own invitation because he’d not decided whether it was something he should or wanted to do; the amount of time the job would take him away from the farm, the compromises he might have to make, and the responsibility – it was not a decision to be taken lightly. It had not occurred to him, however, that his father would believe he’d been asked or, even worse, that the old man would be so obviously pleased about it.
‘Of course, the Ministry of Ag isn’t going to make the same mistake as last time,’ he’d told Stork. ‘It’s one thing ploughing up fallow land and adding phosphates and lime to poor soil, but it was a mistake to put so much emphasis on arable. They want to make farms more productive, not make them uniform. Not the same thing at all.’
Stork had tentatively suggested that, while his father had a point, the government would almost certainly insist on ploughing the land because cereals were bulkier to ship than meat and offered considerably more food per acre than livestock.
‘It was a disaster last time,’ his father told him. ‘They won’t make the same mistake again.’
‘It wasn’t, Pa,’ Stork had replied. ‘It was a huge success.’
‘When half the country’s farmers were brought to their knees in the aftermath?’
Stork had let it go. It had not been worth getting into an argument in the face of his father’s infuriating certainty with which he made such pronouncements. Worse, though, was knowing that his father wasn’t going to be on the War Ag Committee, and that they would mostly likely have to sell all the beef cattle – his father’s pet project and the only part of the day-to-day running of the farm in which he still played a direct part. And he knew who would be blamed and ranted at for his father’s humiliation and disappointment.
Stork flew on towards Shaftesbury, then banked and turned towards Win Green, the highest point in the county with its clump of beech trees marking the spot. It was a perfect storm in the making.
Nor was that all. The following day, his father was turning seventy-five and all the family were gathering. His older brother, Denholm, was arriving from southern France later today, on the London train, with his daughter, Coco. The prodigal son, to be fussed over, pandered and feted. It never ceased to amaze Stork that his parents could put Denholm on such a pedestal. Such a feckless, egocentric, morally bankrupt individual deserved no special treatment; he deserved to be cut off and ignored, more like. Stork felt hot with anger just thinking about his older brother: the easy charm, the smarmy praise of their parents, the patronizing digs and the endless showing off about life on the Riviera. The eldest son. The heir. The one who could do no wrong. The one who had buggered off, eschewing any responsibility to the family, who had sat out the last war sailing a desk in the Navy, and who contributed nothing to the future of the farm and the family, other than accept the regular hand-outs of cash Stork had recently discovered his father still wired to him.
Stork glanced southwards towards the sea. Far away, perhaps thirty miles or so, he saw the Isle of Wight and even the Needles. Ships were out at sea – colliers and freighters – the distant smoke from their stacks faintly visible as they slowly steamed along the coastal trade routes. Beyond that, far away, too far to see, was France, the continent of Europe and eventually Germany, no longer ruled by the Kaiser but instead by a ridiculous-looking fanatic with a ludicrous moustache. What were the Germans thinking? He thought of Carin, a German, but as normal and peace-loving, as kind, gentle and caring as any person one might wish to meet. What did she have in common with the Nazis? Nothing at all, yet her brother had become a rabid National Socialist. It all seemed so impossible, so implausible, that once again, war with Germany was looming.
The early-morning flight had been supposed to provide solace, and a chance for him to get his thoughts in order. Instead, he felt more troubled than before. A thought entered his brain: to push down the stick and hurtle into the ground. It would be a quick, painless end to all of these worries and the heavy dull weight that hung over him, like a leaden shroud.
Ahead, the rising sun shone towards him as he continued eastwards towards the landing strip on the downs above Farrowcombe. Its rays warmed his face and he marvelled at how breathtakingly beautiful his small corner of England was. Down below he saw his home, the lawn and the outhouses, the barns on their staddle-stones and the cob-walled kitchen garden, nestling at the foot of the combe, surrounded by a sylvan carpet of ash, beech, elm and hazel. He flew on, banking as he turned to come back into land, the brief thought of death quickly erased from his mind.
<line space
Landing smoothly, he taxied back to the hangar, a Dutch barn with a corrugated iron roof that stood sheltered beside a copse of ash. Smudger Smith was there, waiting to guide him into the barn. ‘How was she?’ he asked, as Stork clambered down and took off his flying helmet.
‘Good as gold, as always,’ Stork told him.
‘More than can be said for the Fordson.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ They both moved to Dorothy’s tail and began to move it around so that it once more faced outwards.
‘Bugger’s a bastard to start, guv’nor. Temperamental. The lads don’t like it and Claude began binding on at me about it.’
‘That’s ridiculous. It should be perfectly straightforward to start. I’ll talk to them.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We need to get our skates on, Smudge, or we’ll be late.’
Chocks under the wheels, tarpaulin slung over the cockpit and they were done and walking towards the pick-up.
‘The thing is, they know you’re a bloody miracle worker,’ Stork continued, as they clambered into the Ford. Smudger lit a cigarette, pushed his cap back off his brow and looked out as they trundled towards the track that led back down into the valley. Stork glanced at him. ‘Whenever there’s anything mechanical to solve, they all think you’re the answer.’
Smudge nodded – That’d be right – and drew on his cigarette. He was a small man, and although a year or two younger than Stork, his face was more lined, his skin almost stretched back from his jaw with a pronounced Adam’s apple, and his stubble was going grey. The combination made him look older. He hadn’t shaved for several days – something about which Stork was punctilious no matter what hour he rose. His jacket looked worn while his flannel shirt was frayed around the collar. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford new clothes but rather that he wasn’t interested. His fingers were stained with oil and nicotine. Stork could barely remember ever having seen him eat. As far as he was aware, Smudger survived on a diet of sweet tea and cigarettes.
Smudger Smith had been Stork’s fitter in France – his personal mechanic. When Stork had been posted back to England, they’d lost touch until a year or so after the end of the war when a letter had arrived out of the blue. Smudger had been released from the RAF and was struggling to find work. He wasn’t expecting any favours, but if Major Castell knew of anyone needing a mechanic, he would be most grateful if he would be willing to let him know and put in a good word. Hoping this finds you in good health and heart, he had signed off, Yours sincerely, Maurice Smith.
For a few minutes Stork had struggled to think who the letter was from. Then the penny dropped; he’d never known his Christian name. The letter had arrived serendipitously, however, because Stork had recently bought his DH.4 and had realized belatedly that he would need a mechanic. He had also recognized that mechanization was the future for farming, and while at the time that was a battle still to be won with his father, he could think of no one better, or whom he would trust more, to take care of such matters than Smudger Smith. He had offered him a job and with it a small house, part of a thatched terrace, at the edge of the village. Smudger had been with him ever since and, although he was a Londoner, had adjusted to rural life well enough. He’d never married but had seemed content, tinkering, stripping engines, instinctively working out how the mechanics of new machinery operated, and supported with a burgeoning workshop at Farrowcombe. Stork didn’t know how he would have survived without him. The trust he’d had in him in France had never once been tested.
‘Is there anything you can do to improve matters?’ Stork now asked, as they rumbled down the holloway towards the combe below.
Smudger glanced at him.
‘Tinker with it to make it start better?’ continued Stork. ‘No such issues with the Allis-Chalmers, are there?’
Smudger drew on his cigarette, flicked the butt out of the cab, then muttered, ‘Maybe. I’ll take a look.’
They drove on past Farrowcombe towards the village, the road winding its way through the hedgerows and around Windmill Hill, jutting out from the ridge of chalk to look down upon the village.
‘Ready for the party?’ said Smudger at length.
‘I’m looking forward to having the children back.’ As they crossed the bridge by the village church of St John the Baptist and reached the junction, he looked left and right then pulled out. ‘It’s hard feeling much in the mood for a party at the moment, though. God knows what’s going to happen to us all.’
Smudger said nothing more and they continued in silence as they made their way along Duck Street, turned down the drive towards Alvesdon Manor, and continued around the back to the outbuildings, barns and the yard. Most of the workers were already there, punctually, just as they always were, including Edward, his eldest boy, and Elsa and Robbie, his younger brother John’s children. Other, younger, children of the farm workers were there too; everyone was expected to pitch in at harvest time. Rain or shine, summer and winter, seven in the morning was the start of the working day, six days a week for all except the dairyman and his team, who worked even on Sundays and kept their own strange hours. It was five minutes to seven.
Stork climbed out and walked over to Claude Timbrell, the foreman, then looked at his watch and around the assembled labourers, more than forty in all, as well as some twenty children to add extra hands.
‘Mornin’, guv’nor,’ said Claude. On his head sat his battered trilby, while his ample moustache, now flecked with grey, twitched. Next to him stood his son, Tom, absent-mindedly picking at a nail. Stork remembered when Tom had been young; the lad had always been a crack shot but so small until suddenly, one summer, he’d grown at an astonishing rate, as rapid as a sunflower, Betty Collis had said. Now Tom was broad, tall and strong, twenty-five years old and a fine, instinctive gamekeeper. Once, Stork had hoped he might take over from his father as foreman, and eventually maybe even be given a tenancy. Now, though, he wasn’t so sure. Everything that had seemed certain was much less so.
Christ, thought Stork. The men and women before him chatted quietly, some already holding tools or bridles loosely. Everyone here was dependent on the farm: for their work, their wages, their dwellings. Most had barely left the valley in their lives let alone the county, except for annual church outings to the Dorset coast. Seventeen families worked on the farm, fathers, sons and daughters, even grandfathers. The cycle and rhythm of life in the valley was so regular, so constant. Until now.
‘Right,’ said Claude. ‘It’s another beautiful day and God’s blessed us with a dry ’un an’ all. Let’s get this harvest finished and start on gathering the stooks. Anything you want to add, guv’nor?’