Black August

'Really?

'Yes, really,' she mocked: the set of her square chin with its little pointed centre showed an unusual obstinacy in her otherwise essentially feminine face.

Kenyon Wensleadale smoothed back his auburn hair and made a wry grimace. 'Anyhow, Lenin made a pretty hopeless mess,' he countered. 'Things were bad enough in Russia when they were running their last Five Year Plan, but since that broke down it has been absolute chaos.'

'Things would have been different if Lenin had lived.'

'I doubt it though they might have taken a turn for the better if the Counter revolution had come off two years ago.'

'Thanks.' Ann took a cigarette from the case he held out. 'I wonder what's happening there now.'

'When the Ogpu had butchered the remnant of the intelligentsia, they must have gone home to starve with the rest of the population, I imagine, and the whole country is gradually sinking back into a state of barbarism. The fact that their wireless stations have been silent for the last six months tells its own story.'

'I think that the way the capitalist countries strangled young Russia at its birth is tragic, but perhaps it would be best now if the Japs did take over the wreck.'

He shook his head impatiently ' Japan’s far too powerful already with the whole of the Pacific seaboard in her hands from Kamchatka to Malaya. The new Eastern Empire would be the biggest in the world if they were allowed to dominate Russia as well.'

Ann gave a sudden chuckle of laughter. 'Ha! ha! afraid of the old Yellow Peril bogey, eh?' With a little jerk she drew her feet up under her and leaned forward a small, challenging figure, framed in the corner of the compartment.

. 'Yes,' said Kenyon. But he was not thinking of the Yellow Peril he was studying her face. The broad forehead, the small straight nose, the rather wide mouth, tilted at the corners as if its owner constantly enjoyed the joke of life and her eyes, what colour were they not green or brown, but something of both in their dark background, necked over with a thousand tiny points of tawny light. They were very lovely eyes, and they were something more they were merry, laughing eyes.

She looked down suddenly, and the curve of her long dark lashes hid them for a moment as she went on. 'Well, who's going to stop the Japs? we can't anyway.'

'No, but it's pretty grim, isn't it? the whole thing I mean. The world seems to have gone stark, staring crazy. Ever since the end of the 1920's we've had nothing but crashes and revolutions and wars and dictatorships. God alone knows where it is all going to end.'

'International Socialism,' said Ann firmly, 'that's the only hope, but ever since I've been old enough to have any fun some sort of gloom has been hanging over the country. Half the people I know are living on somebody else because their firm has gone broke or their investments don't pay. I'm sick of the whole thing so for goodness' sake let's talk of something else.'

'Sorry,' he smiled, 'one gets so into the habit of speculating as to what sort of trouble is coming to us next! Do you live in Suffolk?'

'No, London got to because of my job.'

'Where abouts?'

' Gloucester Road.'

'That's South Kensington, isn't it?'

'Yes, it's very handy for the tubes and buses.'

'Have you got a fiat there?'

'A flat!' Ann's mouth twitched with amusement. 'Gracious, no! I couldn't afford it. Just a room, that's all.'

'In a hotel?'

'No, I loathe those beastly boarding houses. This is over a shop. There are five of us; a married couple, a journalist, another girl and myself. It is run by an ex service man whose wife left him the house. We all share a sitting room, and there's a communal kitchen on the top floor. It is a queer spot, but it is cheap and there are no restrictions, so it suits me. Where do you live?'

'With my father, in the West End.'

'And what do you do?'

'Well, I'm a Government servant of sorts, at least I hope to be in a few weeks' time if I get the job I'm after.'

'I wonder how you'll like being cooped up in an office all day? You don't look that sort of man.'

'Fortunately I shan't have to be a good part of my work will be in Suffolk. Do you come down to Orford often?'

She shook her dark curly head. 'No, only for holidays. You see, I like to dress as nicely as I can, and even that's not easy on my screw so it's Orford with Uncle Timothy or nothing!'

Kenyon smiled. He liked the candid way in which she told him about herself. 'What is Uncle Timothy like?' he inquired.

'A parson and pompous!' the golden eyes twinkled. 'He's not a bad old thing, really, but terribly wrapped up in the local gentry.'

'Do you see a lot of them?'

'No, and I don't want to!'

'Why the hate they're probably quite a nice crowd.'

'Oh, I've nothing against them, but I find my own friends more intelligent and more amusing besides the women try to patronise me, which I loathe.'

He laughed suddenly. 'The truth is you're an inverted snob!'

'Perhaps,' she agreed, with a quick lowering of her eyelids, the thick dark lashes spreading like fans on her cheeks; 'but they seem such a stupid, vapid lot yet because of their position they still run everything; so as I'm in inclined to be intolerant, it is wisest that I should keep away from their jamborees.'

Kenyon nodded. 'If you really are such a firebrand you’re probably right, but you mustn't blame poor old Uncle Timothy if he fusses over them a bit. After all, the landowners have meant bread and butter to the local parson in England for generations, so it is only part of his job.'

'Church and State hang together, eh?'

'Now that's quite enough of that,' he said promptly, 'or we'll be getting onto religion, and that's a thousand times worse than politics.'

'Are you er religious?' she asked with sudden serious ness.

'No, not noticeably so but I respect other people who are whatever their creed.'

'So do I,' her big eyes shone with merriment, 'if they leave me alone. As I earn my own living I consider that I'm entitled to my Sunday morning in bed!'

'How does that go in Gloucester Road?'

'Perfectly as we all have to make our own beds! that, to my mind, is one of the beauties of the place.'

'What making your own bed?'

'Idiot! of course not, but being able to stop in it without any fuss and nonsense.'

'Yes,' he said thoughtfully, 'you're right there rich people miss a lot of fun, they have to get up because of the servants!'

The train rumbled to a halt in the little wayside station of Elms well. The carriage door was flung open, and a queer, unusual figure stumbled in. Kenyon drew up his long legs with a barely concealed frown, but he caught the suggestion of a wink from Ann and looked again at the newcomer.

He was very short, very bony, his skinny legs protruded comically from a pair of khaki shorts and ended in a pair of enormous untanned leather boots. He carried the usual hiker's pack and staff, and a small, well thumbed book which he proceeded at once to read. The close print and limp black leather binding of the book suggested some religious manual. Its owner was of uncertain age, his face pink and hairless, his head completely bald except for a short fringe of ginger curls above his ears.

As the train moved on again Kenyon turned back to Ann. 'What were we talking about? getting up in the morning, wasn't it?'

'Yes, and how rottenly the world is organised!'

'I know, it's absurd to think that half the nicest people in it have to slave away at some beastly job for the best years of their lives when they might be enjoying themselves in so many lovely places.'

'Would you do that if you had lots of money?'

I might

'Then I think you would be wrong.' The tawny eyes were very earnest. 'I'd love it for a holiday, but everybody ought to work at some job or another, and if the rich people spent less of their time lazing about and gave more thought to the welfare of their countries the world might not be in such a ghastly state.'