User:Hors-la-loi/The Aerodrome

The Aerodrome is a 1941 philosophical fiction by Rex Warner set in an English village which contains an air force base. It covers about a year in the life of the narrator Roy, who was raised in the village and at 21 joins the air force. Though the world of the village was not faultless, it tried to hold to traditional Christian values. He finds the godless technocratic proto-fascist world of the air force a dystopia.

The author stressed that the fictional air force in the novel has no connection with the Royal Air Force which was heroically defending Britain at the time.

Summary

On his 21st birthday Roy’s parents, a country rector and his wife, tell him that he is a foundling and they are only his guardians. His guest, a Flight Lieutenant from the air force base in the village, is outraged. Roy goes off to the pub and gets drunk. Creeping home late, he overhears the rector confessing aloud to God that he killed his wife’s lover Anthony.

While demonstrating weapons at the annual agricultural show, the Flight Lieutenant accidentally kills the rector. At the funeral the Air Vice-Marshal in charge of the base makes a hideously insensitive address. He also announces that the base is being extended to take in the whole village and that future church services will be taken by the Flight Lieutenant.

Unsure of his future, Roy takes up with the barmaid Bess. The Flight Lieutenant, now he has the power to marry them, does so secretly and lets them use a hut on the base for lovemaking. Bess’ mother, who used to work at the rectory, is horrified and tells Roy that Bess is his half-sister. Determined to break with Bess, Roy finds her making love with the Flight Lieutenant.

Joining the air force, Roy rapidly qualifies as a pilot. He learns that officers are expected to amuse themselves with love affairs but that fathering a child is an offence. He also learns that his former hero, the Flight Lieutenant, is a lowly pen pusher. After giving an emotional address in the village church, the Flight Lieutenant is reduced to the ranks and a village woman who defends him is shot dead in front of the congregation.

Roy meanwhile has caught the eye of the Air Vice-Marshal as a promising young officer and is given the highly important job of his personal aide. There he discovers that the Air Vice-Marshal is head of a conspiracy to seize control of the country and he is warned that for any breach of confidence he will be shot. He also catches the eye of Eustasia, promiscuous wife of a top scientist on the base, who initiates an affair.

Roy is however deeply troubled when she tells him she is pregnant. Going to her home, he finds she has run away with a previous lover, the former Flight Lieutenant. Air force police pursue and kill them both. Roy storms into the Air Vice-Marshal's office to say that he wants to leave the air force. Reiterating that it will be impossible because he knows too much, the Air Vice-Marshal puts Roy under arrest while he flies off with other conspirators to a key meeting about the imminent coup. Roy had seen the former Flight Lieutenant do something to their plane, which crashes killing all on board.

The rector’s wife then tells Roy that she really is his mother and that his father was the Air Vice-Marshal, whose real name was Anthony. Though the rector thought he had killed him, he had secretly recovered. She also reveals that the former Flight Lieutenant was a half-brother, being another son of Anthony’s, while Bess was a daughter of the rector and so not a half-sister. Bess is happy to take Roy back while he plans a new life outside the corrupt and morally bankrupt air force.

Media representations

A film version in colour was made by the BBC and shown only once in 1983. It starred Peter Firth as Roy, Richard Johnson as his real father and Jill Bennett as Eustasia.

Category:1941 novels Category:Dystopian fiction