Some Day I'll Find You Read Online Free PDF

there he found himself struggling to keep up with the other trainee officers. Standards were dauntingly
high. With mounting dismay he watched candidate after candidate quietly asked to leave the college after flunking academic or practical tests. His own grasp of mathematics was shaky at best. What
would happen when navigation classes began?
    Socially, he stood out. His carefully enunciated words fooled nobody. One night in the Prince Rupert, Cranwell College’s pub of choice in nearby Newark, as he broodily nursed a beer in an
unlit corner, he overheard a Kensington-born trainee pilot in the adjoining booth deliver a damning verdict.
    ‘Blackwell? The ghastly man’s a fraud, and common with it. He only got in in the first place because this is the RAF. Anywhere else and the bloody little oik would have been barred
at the camp gate. Just wait until we’ve finished theory and start getting up in the air. He’ll be kicked out of here faster than a lance-corporal who’s wandered into the
Officers’ Mess. No
rank
. No
class
. No class at all.’
    Later, lying on his iron-framed cot smoking cigarette after cigarette in the dark, James came to a decision. He couldn’t make it through Cranwell on his own. He needed back-up, support.
Someone with standing who would, by association, enhance his own and offer some social protection, even advice.
    In other words, a well-placed friend.
    A friend. James smiled faintly to himself. He’d never wanted, nor solicited a friend in his whole life. He wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it.
    But he wouldn’t have to worry, as things turned out.
    John Arnold found him first.

10
    ‘Honestly, Di,’ John murmured to his sister, keeping his voice low in case his parents and his friend at the other end of the room overheard. ‘James was
really up against it at Cranwell, poor bloke.’
    Together they poured cognacs from the drinks trolley for everyone. John was amused to see that his sister had put on fresh lipstick during the party’s move from dining room to drawing
room, and changed into new stockings after he’d whispered to her that she had a slight ladder in one of them. He was half-surprised she’d not gone the whole hog and put on a different
frock; he was sure she’d been tempted. But she’d returned downstairs in the same dark red woollen dress which she knew showed off her figure at its best.
    ‘I hope James appreciates your efforts, sis,’ he murmured, nudging her conspiratorially.
    ‘Steady,’ warned Diana, as she slopped a little of the brandy over the tray. ‘This might have to last. Everyone’s saying the war will be over by Christmas, but
that’s exactly what Daddy says people thought last time, and it was four years. I’ve already told Mummy to go easy on the tinned salmon.’
    Five balloon glasses were placed on the tarnished silver tray.
    ‘Anyway, never mind me,’ said Diana. ‘Go on. What d’you mean about James being up against it?’
    ‘Not here,’ answered her brother, glancing across the room. ‘Fetch some cigarettes and I’ll smoke one with you on the ha-ha. I’ll tell you all about James
there.’
    John had never seen class snobbery at work until Cranwell. It made him deeply uncomfortable. His own public school, Hedgebury, had operated a generous system of scholarships
and assisted places. Most of the boys there were sons of professional men – lawyers like his own father, businessmen, doctors, politicians. The school was run on modern lines as an
uncompromising meritocracy. Assumptions of superiority by birthright were frowned on.
    True, there had been occasional bouts of trouble with ‘town boys’ when older Hedgeberians found themselves at a loose end in the local High Street on their half-days off. But these
run-ins were relished by both sides, and had more the flavour of sporting fixtures than class war.
    John found the patronising of James at Cranwell unpleasant. His own public-school background had taught him that