statesmen speak of as the call to duty. It could be that he must turn away from the things to be dealt with: a decline of standards, a loss of direction . . . the machine . . . war . . . the surge of violence, drink, drugs, sex . . . the mounting human tide . . . restlessness, rebellion and racial hatreds . . . He turned on his side and pounded the pillows making a hollow for his head. But he could find no comfortable spot; it was coming again, the memory he must erase from consciousness . . . it began as a physical tension in his arms, then caught at the back of his neck. He felt a throbbing weight behind his eyes. He sat up kicking off the coverlets and, clasping his knees with both arms, put his head down on them. He mustn’t remember! He mustn’t remember!
But then he seemed to be standing beside the plane on the airfield at Charleston, and, once surrendered to the vision, had to go on with it.
He had flown down from Washington in his twin-engined Cessna to pick up Valerie and the boys. They had been spending a fortnight with Valerie’s grandmother in her house on Legare Street, and were being driven out to the field to meet him. He saw the car, coming very fast, and with the usual leap of his heart waved a greeting. Valerie got out and ran toward him, the boys at her side. She was dressed in white, her shining hair loose. She motioned to the driver to wait, and when Edward leaned down to kiss her, pushed him away with a strong thrust of both hands.
“We mustn’t fly,” she said, her breath coming in short gasps. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone’s been warned to stay indoors . . .”
“I know,” Edward said quietly.
“Listen to me!” she cried. “This is a hurricane! Or didn’t you know?”
“I’ll fly ahead of it,” Edward interrupted. “Get in. All three of you! And hurry.”
Valerie shook her head. She gave Edward a strange look, almost as if she hated him. He had seen that look only once before, when he lifted her veil at the altar the day of their marriage. Something in her eyes that seemed to say: “You won’t control me, now or ever. I belong to myself and always will.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “The boys, no! They stay here with their grandmother.”
“Where’s your luggage?”
“I left it at the house.”
She turned and gathered the boys close, her arms around them. The sky had darkened. Small spirals of wind put down, twisted, raced across the field. Two men tumbled out of a transport plane and ran toward the hangar. No one else was in sight.
“Please trust me, Valerie,” Edward said. “It’s a lot safer to fly. Your grandmother’s house is more likely to fall apart than this plane.” He put his hand on the Cessna’s flank, as a rider might touch his mount; he felt the powerful vibrations of the metal along his arm and knew the confidence of a flier who had never cracked up . . . not in fifty wartime missions, nor since.
He turned abruptly and signaled to the driver of the waiting car: “Go on back!” The car turned, the tires squeaking. It sped away toward the city.
Valerie let her arms fall from her sons’ shoulders. She watched them scramble into the plane, as perhaps the mothers of the Innocents surrendered their young to the slicing swords of the assassins. Edward slapped their hard little behinds to boost them up. They were tall boys for their age . . . only six and eight . . . and sturdy. They settled into their places, their eyes bright, their cheeks flushed. But when Edward turned to offer Valerie his hand, he saw that she was very pale, and the hand she gave him was cold. The sky had darkened suddenly and drops of rain began to fall like lead pellets; there was a smell of dust and sulphur in the air, and a distant thrumming sound seemed to roll around the horizon and to encircle the field. At that moment Edward might have turned back. A sort of jerk ran through his body as if a string had been pulled by an unseen hand. He started to speak, to say that he was sorry . . . if she was frightened, of course they’d try to get back to the city . . . But then he realized that this was something between Valerie and himself; it had nothing to do with the onrushing hurricane or with the danger ahead: she must believe in him and trust him and go with him, unquestioning, as women who love go with the men they love.
“Please trust me, Valerie.”
“Very well. I will.”
That was all. She took her place beside him. Now they were together, mother, father, sons. The take-off was smooth except for a shudder as a gust of wind struck like a slap against the Cessna’s side. Then they were clear and lifting easily. As always Edward responded to the plane’s obedience to his will. He had discovered that he could love a mechanical thing if he could animate and control it. A feeling of exultation overcame any doubt he may have had.
“Don’t worry,” he said, turning his head briefly to glance at Valerie, “we’ll make it. And then you’ll be glad. Charleston’s going to take a beating, but Washington’s in the clear.”
The boys were staring out through the suddenly drenched and streaming window into a blackness that was blacker than night . . . and only a moment ago the sun had been shining in a blur of vapour! The plane wavered, lurched, dropped, climbed again, shuddering, fighting for altitude.
“So soon,” Edward heard himself say. “Where did it come from? How did this happen?”
He knew when she reached over and put her hand out to the boys. He knew when she told them it was going to be all right . . . their father would get them safely home.
Then they were driving through a wall of ice, encased in a sound like the splintering and crackling of broken glass, and out again into a fraction of calm when the plane steadied and balanced. At that moment Edward realized that he had no control whatever; the hurricane had taken over and was playing with this floating object as if it were a leaf whirled and tossed and driven along a gutter. A jagged flash of lightning cut through the dark: tangles and loops of fire, worm-like, writhed on the wings. The Cessna tilted again, slid sideways into a void, dropping endlessly down and down and down . . .
Did Valerie scream? Did he, himself, cry out? Probably not. It was too quick, that last plunge, that plummet drop into chaos and silence.
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