“D’you ever talk about anything else?”
“Ah, that was almost the question. I understand that you travel widely: is it the same throughout Europe?”
“War talk? Yes.”
“But do people really believe it could happen?”
“Sure they do.”
Dagner shook his head in genuine puzzlement. “But with all the changes, new inventions-”
“Like the new battleships and submarines and Matt’s guns and putting machine-guns on airplanes?”
“Quite, although I was thinking more of things like the telephone, faster travel, that are bringing the nations closer together. And must help trade. Europe’s grown so rich. Yes, you still see poverty – but nothing like what you see in India. A Continental war – it seems almost a luxury, an absurd extravagance . . . if that doesn’t sound too ridiculous.”
She smiled sympathetically. “No, you may have hit on something there. Maybe these people think they can afford a war along with everything else. They could even feel they’ve already paid for it, with the new battleships and all, so now they’re owed the glory. I don’t know about that. But one thing’s for sure, they don’t think a war’s going to be long and costly, so economic arguments just don’t work a damn.”
“But those can’t be the opinions of political and industrial leaders.”
“I don’t talk to people on street corners,” she said crisply.
“Of course not, I do apologise . . . but it seemed as if you were suggesting that some people might actually want such a war.”
She glanced at Ranklin, who was no help, and then felt: he asked me, and this matters too much for tact. “Yes, I think some people do: they think it’ll ‘clear the air’ somehow.”
He clearly didn’t believe her so, being Corinna, she doggedly went ahead and made it worse: “Europeans think we Americans don’t know anything about war. But we did have one – before my time, but there’re still survivors of it stumping around on one leg. D’you know how big the US Army – North and South together – was when it started? Just about fifteen thousand men. Four years later our war had killed six hundred thousand of them. So we think it’s a little funny the Europeans think we don’t know about war.”
The figures startled Ranklin, but Corinna didn’t get figures wrong. And his startlement proved her point: European armies did dismiss that war as “merely civil” and got on with studying the campaigns of the properly international Franco-Prussian one.
Dagner showed no reaction at all. An oyster doesn’t slam shut. But although he was still smiling politely, it was clear to both of them that he was back in his shell, not at home to any more opinions.
“Alas, I hear the call of unshuffled papers – so will you forgive me if . . . ?” He stood up.
In perfect control, Corinna flashed her widest smile and extended her hand. “Delighted to have met you, Major.”
When Dagner had gone, she let out her breath like – rather too much like – a surfacing whale, and said: “How’d I do? I felt so stupidly nervous . . .”
“That was my fault.” He wasn’t sure what was, but it seemed a safe thing to say.
“He didn’t believe us, though.” She mused. “Was that because I was a woman – or an American?”
“You did rather ram that in.”
She grinned wickedly, then turned serious. “But in his job, he should be a better listener. And people living under a volcano ought to know it’s there. You could have trouble with that man.”
So Ranklin found himself defending Dagner out of loyalty. “He’s been a long time out in India. It gives you a great impression that Britain, and Europe, are wonderfully efficient and sensible. Out there, believe me, you feel you’re floating in a great river, no point in swimming against it and nothing you can do to speed it up or change anything. Give him time, he’ll learn.”
“If you’ve got time. Maybe his wife’ll help, when she gets here. He needs someone to talk to. D’you know anything about her?”
“Er . . . no. Except she must be his second wife. His first died in India. So an old friend of his said.”
“Was he doing the same sort of work in India?” Now Dagner was no longer a State Secret, Corinna wasn’t holding back.
Ranklin tried a diversionary answer. “Out there, he’s quite a hero – I mean an overt one. He was on Younghusband’s expedition to Tibet and picked up a DSO.”
“Whatever all that means.”
“In 1904, they routed the whole Tibetan Army, fought their way through to Lhasa, the first white men to reach the Forbidden City.”
“Yes? And what did that achieve?”
He tried to think back. According to Army gossip, policy had changed so that London’s politicians censured Younghusband, disowned the expedition and ultimately forced Curzon to resign as Viceroy (Curzon again: had they refought the Younghusband campaign over dinner at the Tower?). You quickly learnt not to expect rewards – except medals, which cost nobody anything – and also that if you were to go on believing in Britain, you had to stop believing its politicians. And some, already with experience of the secret world, might conclude it was best to decide for yourself what was right for your country.
Was that, for one man, what Younghusband’s expedition had achieved?
“Difficult to say,” he mumbled.
17
On Thursday morning Corinna picked up Ranklin outside Whitehall hall Court and they headed for Brooklands. They had planned on getting there in good time for lunch. But so had thousands of others, and nearly three hours before Pegoud was due to fly, the Sherring Daimler was in an ambling stream of motor-cars, pedestrians and cyclists wending up to the aerodrome gates. Hundreds more, reasoning that an aerial display could hardly be kept private so why pay the shilling entrance fee, had roosted on the high ground just outside the track with picnics seasoned by the dust from the road.
Corinna had had much the same idea, on her own scale. She ignored the overflowing Blue Bird restaurant and had the chauffeur lug a bulging picnic hamper over to Andrew’s shed. A work-bench had been cleared and even laid with a tablecloth, albeit by somebody with oily hands. Andrew, Falcone and O’Gilroy had already started on bottled beer.
At Corinna’s orders, the work-bench sprouted wine-bottles, cutlery, pies, potted meats, bread, cheeses and fruit. Corinna, Falcone and Andrew loaded their plates and began a contractual discussion. Ranklin took the chance for a word with O’Gilroy, whom he still had to treat as a casual acquaintance in front of Falcone.
“How goes the flying?”
“Ah, it’s . . .” For once, O’Gilroy couldn’t find the words and his eyes were focused on some unimaginable vision. Unimaginable to me, anyway, Ranklin thought enviously. Is there any human endeavour that could still move me, that I could believe in, like this?
“Mind,” O’Gilroy came down to earth, “there’s a deal to be understood, with the engineering and physics of it. I wisht I had yer education.”
Ranklin was damned if he was going to feel guilty about that, too, but changed the subject slightly. “Did you gather that Andrew’s selling his machine to Senator Falcone? – if he can get it to Italy for a demonstration flight.”
“Mr Sherring said things was going that way.” There was no familiar “Andrew” for O’Gilroy. Mr Sherring was a proper pilot and aeroplane designer, resident of Valhalla. “Didn’t know ’twas cut ’n’ dried.”
“Mrs Finn’s been handling the financial side and the Senator should be giving her a bank draft today. Tell me, what’s so special about this aeroplane?”
O’Gilroy took being consulted seriously. After a lot of thought, he said: “The seating, side by side. Ye don’t get it on most aeroplanes with covered fuselages. Makes it a bit wider and slower but Mr Sherring says he’d rather lose a few miles an hour and have the two fellers able to talk – shout – to each other.”