Pastoral by Nevil Shute Page A

he asked. “Have you fished for them?”
    She said: “I go out with my uncle sometimes, when I’m staying up at Twistleton. He’s the rector. He fishes up and down a little river between Twistleton and Helmsley.”
    “Fly fishing?” She nodded. “Have you ever done it?”
    She said: “The line always catches up in trees and things with me. I never caught anything.” She glanced around them. “It would be different here,” she said. “There’s plenty of room behind. I expect they arranged the trees like that on purpose.”
    He stared down at her with new admiration and respect. “I never fished with fly,” he said. “I don’t know how to.”
    She was still staring at the fish. “He’s awfully sluggish,” she said. “I suppose it’s early in the season, and cold. Let’s get a stick and tickle him up a bit.”
    They got a long stick and thrust it very quietly down into the water at the fish. Before they reached it it flicked round and shot off into deeper water.
    The pilot said: “See it flash? Sort of bronze colour. Let’s see if we can find another.”
    They walked all round the little lake, stick in hand. They saw one or two more fish, but well out of reach of their stick. Over their heads the light began to fade and a little chill wind of March blew through the leafless trees. Presently, regretfully, they left the lake and the long house beyond the lawn and walked back over the rise, down past the badger’s earth towards their bicycles.
    At the gate Gervase said awkwardly: “I think we’d better go back independently …”
    The pilot nodded. “It’ll be all over the station in ten minutes if we don’t.” He grinned at her.
    She turned to him. “I have enjoyed this afternoon,” she said. “It’s been like old times at home. Thank you so much for letting me come.”
    Marshall said: “Thank you for coming.” He hesitated for a moment, wondering how to put what he wanted to say. She stood waiting for him. “If I could find another badger, or something,” he said, “would you like to do it again?”
    The afternoon had shown her that he was simple and honest. He had promised to show her a badger’s earth and he had shown her just that; he had not tried to kiss her or do any of those things. He had helped her to pick primroses.
    She said: “I’d like to, some afternoon when you’re not fishing.”
    She smiled at him, got on her bicycle, and rode off down the lane towards the station. She went very happily. The wind was behind her; the evening was fine and blue. For the first time since she arrived at Hartley Magna she felt a mitigation of the bleak ugliness of life upon the station; her world was no longer made up solely of defaulting airwomen, grey wooden huts, anxiety, and grief, and death. She had had an afternoon with a young man that she liked and respected; a carefree afternoon. She knew quite well that the young man was getting to be very much interested in her, and she liked that, too. There might be difficulties ahead, but she shut her mind to those.
    She got back to her quarters in the last glimmer of daylight, parked her bicycle, and went indoors to the sitting-room. Section Officer Ford was there, a fair-haired girl who was second-in-command to Flight Officer Stevens. She said: “Two pilot officers and two sergeant pilots came in this afternoon from the Pool.”
    Gervase rang the bell and ordered herself a cup of tea. “What are the officers like?”
    “One’s a South African called Harkness. He calls you ‘my dear’ every time he speaks. The other’s a boy called Drummond.”
    “Do you know who they’ll be put with?”
    Jane Ford said: “They’ll get crews of their own before very long, now that they don’t carry second pilots. They might be put with Davy or Marshall or Johnson for a trip or two.”
    Gervase said: “Marshall has a second pilot—a Dane.”
    “Only because he’s a Dane and they don’t feel like giving him a crew of his own. They’ve regraded