Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

“I wanted to—” he began, then stopped.

“Yes—” she encouraged him.

“It’s my father.”

“Yes?” Quickly Rosemary tried to recall the student record sheet. She remembered two parents were listed: father had something to do with marine insurance. Lloyds? No— St. Anselm’s, though respectable enough, was a little too middle-middle-class for Lloyds.

Wilkins pulled another tissue from the box, wincing as he did so. Then another and another.

“Waste not, want not,” she said, parroting one of the Department of Supply posters. Paper was especially scarce, England no longer having any timber for felling. Good Lord, she was as bad as that poor old Professor Whatsit, and his going on about not wasting electric current: hand in your hair dryers.

“What about him?” she asked Wilkins, then added, more gravely, “Your father, I mean?”

Though already lying practically flat in the bed, Wilkins pushed his head back farther against the bedstead, his feet sliding down under the sheet, eyes staring up at the ancient stone ceiling as if his spirit was willing but the body weak. Rosemary sat awkwardly, impatiently, and glanced at her watch, adjusted it like a bracelet, trying not to be rude. Besides, she wasn’t going out anywhere that evening and had intended to sit up as late as possible in an effort not to think of her appointment with the family doctor in Oxshott in the morning. She was pretty sure she’d missed her period but couldn’t remember exactly when her previous one had begun. Usually punctual about marking it in her diary, she had simply forgotten to note it the last time. Even so, it seemed that it certainly should have begun by now.

“I could come another time when you’re feeling better, Graham?”

The name had suddenly come to her, once she realized she was in control of the situation.

“He’s not my real dad, you see.”

“Oh — I didn’t realize. Is that — well, of course, I know these things do matter, but is it enough to — what I mean—” Georgina should be here after all, thought Rosemary. It was a job for the psychologists and Freudians or Jungians. Or Shakespeare. “I mean, does that upset you, that he isn’t your real — natural — father?”

“No.” He plucked another tissue and looked up at the ceiling again.

“Graham, I think you’re probably very distressed now. Please don’t misunderstand. If you’d like another — that is, I mean if you would like to talk something over with me, I’ll be only too happy to come some other time. Just tell the headmaster—”

“I saw him, you see.”

Rosemary’s stomach turned. An extramarital affair. She didn’t want to hear any sordid details. Was that why Wilkins hadn’t wanted his mother there? “Graham, I’m your teacher. I think any family affair — any family matter is best discussed with the school chaplain. If you like, I’d be quite happy to call-”

The boy looked at her now. “Your old man’s in the navy, isn’t he?”

She utterly failed to see the relevance of the question but bristled at “old man.” That was callow Wilkins. “No,” she said, outwardly unfazed. “My father isn’t in the navy.”

“No. I mean your — boyfriend.”

“Oh!” She still didn’t like the familiarity, but now his question at least made more sense.

Wilkins was turning gingerly onto his right side, facing her, grimacing, trying not to put pressure on his right elbow. “I was wrong,” he said. She noticed he was perspiring about the throat. “I mean I shouldn’t have…” he continued. “I got drunk, miss, and I was — well, you know. Under a lot of stress. Exams and, well — you know—”

He was under stress! It was another modern disease-students under stress. What he needed was a good, swift kick in the backside.

“Sometimes when I get drunk I get, well—”

“A lot of people get depressed, Graham. Drink or not.” She hesitated but then decided it was better she said it. “But they don’t try to kill themselves. There’s no answer in that.”

“It was sherry.” He said it as if that were explanation enough. Rosemary said nothing. Was this the answer? Hamlet had drunk sherry? She was sure now that either the boy was somewhat demented, probably as a result of the suicide attempt — either that or—

“Did you take anything else?” she asked him.

“Well, some tablets.”

“What kind of tablets?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you tell the doctor this?”

“He said they found the bottle. Hal — Hal something.”

“You mean you just swallow any kind of tablets?”

He looked straight at her, his face suffused with anger. “What would you do,” he charged, “if—”

“If what?” she cut in impatiently.

“Your old man’s a spy.”

Intuitively she looked about her. “Graham — what are you—” She caught her breath. Of course he understood how serious it was. “Then you should tell someone about it.”

“I am.” He was staring wildly at her. “I’m telling you.” She heard voices nearby.

“Me? But you should tell the police — or—”

“My mum,” he said. “I couldn’t. It’s—” He turned onto his back and slid down farther into the bed. All the color seemed to be draining from his face.

“Graham — this is a very serious accusation.”

“You’re telling me,” he said, and in a hoarse voice, which had been caused by the stomach pump tube, he spoke to her and seemed older, wearier, than she. “I want you to tell them,” he said.

She rose, holding her head with one hand, vaguely aware of clutching her purse with the other. “I—” She stopped, drinking at first the voices were next door, but then seeing it was near 7:00 p.m., she realized it was time for prep in the classrooms below. “Where is your father now?”

“Stepfather,” he reminded her. “He’s in Southampton today.” A wicked, cynical grin — the kind she’d seen in class before — twisted the curve of his mouth. “Port comings and goings, you see.”

Rosemary lowered her voice. “Graham—?”

“I’ve seen the brown envelopes,” he said. “You know— OHMS — On His Majesty’s Service. Nicked from some government offices, I expect. Makes it look all official like — if they were dropped and somebody picked them up accidentally. Full of cash. They’re in a box at home. I know where he hides it all.”

She was staring down at him, aghast at the enormity of what he was telling her. A man selling port schedules, tonnages, departures, of the NATO convoys to enemy agents. It was unthinkable that an Englishman — and now everything came into focus — the newspapers reporting, as much as they were able, the “in camera” trials of four spies caught in the past month. Some even said the surprise breaching of the Fulda Gap had been aided and abetted by well-organized and pervasive sabotage behind the NATO lines, the SPETSNAZ — Russian commandos, which the Americans called “special forces”—having been sold defense plans by East German spies who had come through to the West in the flood following the opening of the Berlin Wall.

“I thought,” continued Wilkins, his throat so dry, he could barely talk, “that with your old man, miss — being in the navy and all and — well, I wanted to tell someone.”

In turmoil but not wanting to panic the boy, she marshaled all the calm that was her teacher’s stock in trade, not letting the class, the world, see inside. Unflappable Rosemary, in Georgina’s absence, keeping the sheer terror of what such betrayal could mean to thousands of British and American seamen on the convoys bottled up inside her. She touched Wilkins gently on the shoulder. “I think it’s pointless of me to say, ‘Don’t worry.’ Of course, I know how you must feel. But, Graham, you mustn’t mention this to anyone until I’ve talked to the authorities. Don’t tell anyone until I’ve come back.”