Its members are an odd selection. Some of a military kind, some in the teaching profession, others clerical; others again from that no-man’s-land of London society which lies between the bookmaker and the gentleman, presenting to those around them, and perhaps even to themselves, an image of vacuous courage; conversing in codes and phrases which a man with a sense of language can only listen to at a distance. It is a place of old faces and young bodies; of young faces and old bodies; where the tensions of war have become the tensions of peace, and voices are raised to drown the silence, and glasses to drown the loneliness; it is the place where the searchers meet, finding no one but each other and the comfort of a shared pain; where the tired, watchful eyes have no horizon to observe. It is their battlefield still; if there is love, they find it here in one another, shyly like adolescents, thinking all the time of other people.
From the war, none but the dons were missing.
It is a small place run by a thin, dry man called Major Dell; he has a moustache, and a tie with blue angels on a black background. He stands the first drink, and they buy him the others. It is called the Alias Club, and Woodford was a member.
It is open in the evenings. They come at about six, detaching themselves with pleasure from the moving crowd, furtive but determined, like men from out of town visiting a disreputable theatre. You notice first the things that are not there: no silver cups behind the bar, no visitors’ book nor list of membership; no insignia, crest or title. Only on the whitewashed brick walls a few photographs hang, framed in decorative adhesive tape, like the photographs in Leclerc’s room. The faces are indistinct, some enlarged, apparently from a passport, taken from the front with both ears showing according to the regulation; some are women, a few of them attractive, with high, square shoulders and long hair after the fashion of the war years. The men are wearing a variety of uniforms; Free French and Poles mingle with their British comrades. Some are fliers. Of the English faces one or two, grown old, still haunt the club.
When Woodford came in everyone looked around and Major Dell, much pleased, ordered his pint of beer. A florid, middle-aged man was talking about a sortie he once made over Belgium, but he stopped when he lost the attention of his audience.
“Hello, Woodie,” somebody said in surprise. “How’s the lady?”
“Fit.” Woodford smiled genially. “Fit.” He drank some beer. Cigarettes were passed around. Major Dell said, “Woodie’s jolly shifty tonight.”
“I’m looking for someone. It’s all a bit top secret.”
“We know the form,” the florid man replied. Woodford glanced around the bar and asked quietly, a note of mystery in his voice, “What did Dad do in the war?”
A bewildered silence. They had been drinking for some time.
“Kept Mum, of course,” said Major Dell uncertainly and they all laughed.
Woodford laughed with them, savoring the conspiracy, reliving the half-forgotten ritual of secret mess nights somewhere in England.
“And where did he keep her?” he demanded, still in the same confiding tone. This time two or three voices called in unison, “Under his blooming hat!”
They were louder, happier.
“There was a man called Johnson,” Woodford continued quickly, “Jack Johnson. I’m trying to find out what became of him. He was a trainer in wireless transmission; one of the best. He was at Bovingdon first with Haldane until they moved him up to Oxford.”
“Jack Johnson!” the florid man cried excitedly. “The WT man? I bought a car radio from Jack two weeks ago! Johnson’s Fair Deal in the Clapham Broadway, that’s the fellow. Drops in here from time to time. Amateur wireless enthusiast. Little bloke, speaks out of the side of his face?”
“That’s him,” someone else said. “He knocks off twenty percent for the old gang.”
“He didn’t for me,” the florid man said.
“That’s Jack; he lives at Clapham.”
The others took it up: that was the fellow and he ran this shop, at Clapham; king of ham radio, been a ham before the war even when he was a kid; yes, on the Broadway, hung out there for years; must be worth a ransom. Liked to come into the club around Christmas time. Woodford, flushed with pleasure, ordered drinks.