Elizabeth returned to her house. The garden indeed looked full and lovely, the walls ruddy-faced, the windows open to the visiting sun, the eaves and trees cool with shade. Wadsworth was stretched on the lawn and he rolled his eyes when he saw her. She knelt and scratched his belly, something which always sent his back legs kicking like a berserk cyclist. There was a halo of bees around the herbaceous beds and a blackbird commented from a branch. As she went into the house through the french window Mary Mainprice came from the kitchen, anxiously wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Kathy Barratt rang from the telephone exchange, Mrs Lovatt. Something about your telephone being taken over if the Germans invade.’ She looked aghast, as if the danger had only just occurred to her. ‘She says they’ve got to Boulogne, and that’s only on the other side of the water, isn’t it?’ Somewhat to Elizabeth’s surprise she began to cry, wiping her eyes on the tea towel. Her husband was a soldier in Singapore.
‘It seems silly, don’t it,’ she said as Elizabeth comforted her. ‘There’s Bert’s got a gun and ’ee’s the other side of the world looking after Chinese, so ’ee says.’ She gave her eyes, now red, a final dab with the tea towel. ‘Last letter I ’ad he seems to be having a good time,’ she added uncertainly. ‘They go swimming and play football and there’s no rationing there and no black-out or anything. And they’re just a lot of Chinese.’
She returned to the kitchen and Elizabeth, smiling a little, followed her. ‘I wrote to ’im and said I was thinking of taking the kids to America,’ Mary said. Elizabeth was astonished.
‘Oh, you can,’ went on Mary before she was asked. ‘You put their names down and they’re going to take them over there. Anybody can go. The Government pays. You just put their names down. I’m thinking I will.’
Elizabeth made tea for both of them. Then, feeling a little foolish, she went into the loft of the house to search for the rook rifle.
Up there, the domain of martins, mildew and mice, with the daylight seeping through the old roof tiles, were all the memories of their lives. The trunks and cases, still labelled, from their one long foreign trip, to Luxor and the Nile Valley in 1934; the books from their sons’ childhoods, an old rugby ball, their first radio set with its earphones hanging on a rafter nail, a lovely but impractical hat she had worn to a wedding years before. With a wry expression she took the hat and put it on. In one corner was a washstand and a mirror, a hideous Victorian assembly which Robert’s mother had bequeathed to them and which went, as soon as decently practicable, into the loft. She wiped the mirror clean with a piece of newspaper, appropriately, she noted, describing the Ascot fashions for 1937. Then she placed the wide-brimmed hat on her head and posed in the dim glass. To think that when she had first worn it she had been a young wife. Up there also was the uniform that had belonged to Gerald, Robert’s brother. It was in a case and she had not looked at it for years. Nor did she now.
She saw the rook rifle, propped in a corner with a gaping tennis racket. Her hand went to the latter. It had been hers also. A spider had embroidered some of the sagging holes with its web.
Elizabeth picked up the light gun and saw on the floor a tobacco tin. Opening this she found, as she remembered, it was half full of lead pellets for the gun. Carefully, still feeling odd about the whole business, she carried the rook rifle and the pellets to the aperture in the ceiling and climbed gingerly down the ladder on to the landing.
On a second thought she returned to the loft and descended again with the collapsed rugby ball and the wide, petalled hat. First looking about her, she took them out into the orchard and propped the ball on top of the log store with the wall of the garage behind it. On top of the ball she fitted the hat and then retreated to the full extent of the garden. There was one place where she had a channel of clear view through the apple trees, only a yard or so wide, and this pleased her because she felt it gave the scenario a certain authentic difficulty.
Elizabeth broke open the rifle, as she had seen her sons do, pushed the lead slug into the breech and lifted it to her shoulder. She squinted along the sights and pressed the trigger. The shot embedded itself in the first apple tree in its path. Frowning, she reloaded.
Ten minutes later, Millie, turning the corner of the house and hearing the brief crack of the rifle, found her mother-in-law wedged close to a tree, firing at the ball and the hat of long ago. ‘Good God!’ exclaimed the younger woman. ‘How very belligerent!’
Elizabeth did not let her embarrassment prevent her firing another shot. ‘There,’ she said, red-faced with satisfaction. ‘I got the chap right between the eyes then.’
Millie peered towards the target. ‘Poor chap,’ she said. ‘And what a pretty hat for a German parachutist.’ Laughing, they walked together through the striped trees towards the garage.
‘It’s the same shape as one of those German helmets,’ explained Elizabeth firmly. She looked pleadingly at Millie. ‘You think I’ve taken leave of my senses, don’t you?’ she said.
‘As one who has been thinking about a recipe for mustard gas bombs, I can’t say I’m qualified to answer that question,’ returned Millie cheerfully. ‘Old Granny Spofforth is telling everyone in the village to have poison ready to put in the drinking-water supplies.’
They had reached the target. ‘Gran Spofforth herself ought to be enough to strike terror into the heart of any invading army,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Did you hear they’re in Boulogne?’
‘Yes, I listened to the news,’ replied Millie quietly. ‘And Amiens, and Arras. I’ve been looking in my old school atlas. They’re not very far away, are they?’ They examined the holes in the hat and the rugby ball.
‘Not bad,’ claimed Elizabeth. ‘Five hits.’
‘How many shots?’
‘Almost the whole tin full of pellets,’ admitted her mother-in-law ruefully. ‘I’ll have to buy some more if you can still get them, or see if there are some lying around.’
‘Can I have a go?’ asked Millie.
Elizabeth handed her the light gun and they walked back to the extreme of the garden. There were only six slugs left in the tobacco tin. ‘We’re getting low on ammo, captain,’ grinned Millie. She lifted the gun and fired. The pellet ricocheted from the guttering of the garage.
‘You’ve got to use the sights,’ protested Elizabeth. ‘You wouldn’t hit a tank like that. Like this, see. Watch.’
She was lining up the hat and ball and had just squeezed the trigger when Robert came around the corner into the garden. Immediately enraged he rushed towards them.
‘No, no, no!’ he bellowed. They turned in amazement. Almost fiercely he took the gun from Elizabeth’s hand. ‘Whatever do you think you’re about?’ he demanded. She could see he was frightened.
‘Practising, Robert,’ she replied firmly. ‘Defending King and Country. Don’t you approve, dear?’
He snorted. ‘No, I damned well do not approve.’ Seeing the hurt cross her face he subsided in a moment and looped his large arms around her, the gun curiously held between them. ‘You mustn’t, Elizabeth,’ he said. He looked at his daughter-in-law. ‘Nor you, young lady. You must never even think of this sort of thing. These are trained men, an army, sweeping everything before them. What . . . what good would this do?’
‘I thought it might help,’ said Elizabeth, subdued but still stoutly. ‘We might get one or two of them.’
‘And then be very quickly eliminated,’ he sighed. ‘Don’t you realize that you are women, and civilians. You have no right to take up arms. You must never think like that again.’
‘But you’re different,’ suggested Millie.
‘Yes, I am. I’m a man and I’m a military man. What I do is entirely different.’ His voice subsided. Anxiety furrowed his face.
‘The British Expeditionary Force in France is surrounded. It has its back to the sea,’ he said simply. ‘There’s going to be an attempt to get many of those chaps out as soon as possible. By sea. Every sort of boat that can be mobilized is going to be used. I’ve got t
o organize something.’
Elizabeth looked aghast. ‘You’re going to France?’ she asked slowly. ‘You? In a boat.’
‘In Lampard’s paddle steamer,’ he replied soberly. ‘He’s getting it ready now. I’m getting a crew together.’
Twilight mist lay in a cloth over the basin of the river, the final touch of the summer day added deep pits and shadows to the roundness of great trees. There were birds in Robert’s garden as he left the house, a hare sat on the road outside and water fowl croaked and quacked as he reached the estuary. John Lampard was already aboard; Robert could see him moving about the deck above the mist-line that hung like a skirt around the paddle steamer.
‘All shipshape, John?’ he called as he reached the stubby jetty.
Lampard’s head poked quickly out of a hatch. ‘I’1l say,’ he enthused. ‘God, what a thing this is going to be. Never thought this old bucket would be going off to sea for years, let alone going off to war.’
Robert stepped clumsily aboard. Despite his love for the river and his lifetime in that place he had never been a man for boats. He always felt too big, too confined. ‘What did Mrs Lampard say?’ he asked carefully.
‘Oh, Joan . . . well, she was all right.’
Robert nodded. ‘They don’t think we’re up to it,’ he agreed. Lampard busied himself with a strip of adhesive on the wheelhouse window. ‘I didn’t tell her the precise details,’ he admitted. ‘No point really. I merely said that they wanted the Sirius to do some watchkeeping work in the Channel. She wasn’t all that pleased with that even; she thinks I’m too old to play at being Nelson.’
‘There’ll be more as old as you and I,’ Robert assured him. He looked down the stokehold hatch. ‘You managed some coal, then.’
‘National emergency,’ replied Lampard proudly. He began polishing the brass rail. ‘Williams over at Marchwood had to give me a load. Best South Wales steam coal, too. Enough for several trips. She’ll go like the Royal Yacht on that.’
‘Don’t you think you’d better forget the polishing,’ Robert suggested with a grin. ‘It’s hardly going to be regatta week, you know.’
Lampard stopped guiltily. ‘I’ll have to rough-paint over the brasswork,’ he said suddenly. ‘Pity after I’ve spent so much time burnishing the stuff.’ He paused. ‘Several voyages,’ he repeated. ‘It’s going to take all of that, don’t you think? I’ve just made some coffee. I’ll get you some. Sugar?’
‘Two,’ replied Robert. ‘For energy, resourcefulness and courage.’
‘Better have three,’ suggested Lampard bringing the mug to the deck. He spooned in the sugar. ‘Pre-war supply that is,’ he said. They sat on one of the deck benches, curled over at the back like a seat in a park, like a pair of fishing friends taking their ease between catches.
‘How many men will be there, do you think?’ asked Lampard.
‘God only knows,’ answered Robert. ‘Couple of hundred thousand, at least.’ He paused. ‘It’s an army. How did anyone allow a whole army to be trapped?’
Lampard looked around the polished wooden deck. ‘Be a bit of a squeeze,’ he joked wryly. ‘She’s never had more than thirty-five aboard, and then she rolls like hell.’
‘Every seaworthy boat there is will be there,’ Robert told him. ‘From what I’ve heard anyway. It’s a madness. But it looks like the only option left. Take them off the beaches.’
‘It’s getting close inshore is going to be the problem for most,’ said Lampard. ‘This old thing will be wonderful for that. She’s got a very shallow draught. I bet there’ll be a few like her. All the paddle steamers that use this bit of coast in the summer, and the Thames boats, let alone those further down in Devon and Cornwall and over on the coast of Kent and Sussex.’ He laughed. ‘The trippers called them the sixpenny sicks, you know.’
Robert drank the last of his coffee. ‘You realize,’ he said gravely, ‘that we shall most probably be under attack. From the air if not from the land and the sea as well.’
Lampard sniffed as if testing the temperature of the river air. ‘It’ll be something new for me,’ he said. ‘I was never in the services. Too late for the first war, and I’ve had a bit of heart trouble, you know, that’s why I quit London.’ He looked abruptly at Robert. ‘Not that it will make any difference to this business,’ he said. ‘I have to go. She’s my boat. Nobody else can handle her.’
Robert laughed. ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ he said.
They sat in silence watching the imperturbable evening river. Ducks were becoming garrulous around the hull and two swans, exquisitely at ease, droned in flight downstream, just above the mist level.
‘How’s that boy with the spots?’ asked Robert. ‘You took him on, didn’t you?’
‘Willie. Yes, he’s not a bad lad at all. Poor little devil has had a raw deal, if you ask me. He moved in with us last week. The people at the farm said they couldn’t keep him any longer. He’s all right.’ He paused. ‘But he sleep-walks.’
‘Good heavens,’ Robert said. ‘Where?’
‘All over the place. He says he’s always done it. Joan thinks he’s looking for his mother.’ He shook his head with amusement. ‘The people at the farm used to make him tie a cow-bell to his ankle, so they knew when he was wandering about at night.’
They laughed together. ‘We’ll have to remember that if we use him in the LDV,’ said Robert. ‘You can’t have somebody on night duty who’s liable to walk into the enemy while he’s asleep.’
They enjoyed the idea for a while, then fell to a comfortable silence. Darkness gathered over the estuary.
‘They’ll give us three hours’ notice,’ said Robert. Lampard had purposely not asked many questions. ‘Petrie, the coastguard chap, will tell us when. He’s coming with us.’
‘Good,’ nodded Lampard. ‘With a paddler you need someone like that. Who else, the Dove boys?’
‘Yes. They couldn’t get their boat into the water on time. It’s still full of holes. They’re keen as hell. Frightened they’re going to be left behind. Petrie’s bringing some charts of Dunkirk and environs or whatever the naval term is.’
Lampard approved. ‘That’s splendid. I think I could find my way across there, although I haven’t been for years, not since I was sailing.’
‘But what you do when you get to the other bank is another matter. We could be stuck in the mud at the mercy of Jerry,’ said Robert.
‘If everyone could bring some rations,’ said Lampard. ‘And a bottle or two of something . . . just to keep out the cold.’
They talked for another half an hour, not of the impending adventure, but of former days, of times and characters they had known, of London, of Binford. At ten-thirty they heard voices along the riverbank and three figures came through the summer darkness. Petrie and the Dove boys came aboard and the five men sat, drinking Scotch which Lennie Dove had brought with him, while the night grew around them. They only drank one toast: to the morrow.
Elizabeth was waiting when Robert returned. ‘I’m relieved,’ she said, turning away quite quickly. ‘I thought you’d gone off to France already.’ She went into the kitchen and returned with their nightly cups of cocoa. ‘You’re still going, I take it?’ She attempted to make the inquiry sound casual.
‘Of course,’ he replied gently. ‘I must. Everybody must do something at a time like this. If we lose our army we’ll lose the war, everything.’
‘You really hate the Germans, don’t you?’ she said, to his surprise.
‘Hate them? Of course I do. They’re the most loathsome race, always have been. Look how they bombed Rotterdam the other day. Can you imagine English airmen doing that?’
They had two Dresden figures on the alcove shelf beside the fireplace. She reached from her chair and picked one up. ‘And yet they made these,’ she pointed out. ‘And they’ve produced people like Luther and . . .’
He did not let her finish. ‘Hitler is the one I’m thinking about at the moment,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And the rest of t
he thugs. If we let them win they will defile us forever. I’m in no doubt about that.’ He blinked at her. ‘I’m surprised you even mentioned it.’
She stood up, put the figure back on the shelf. ‘I wonder what it will be like in, say, thirty years’ time?’ she said. ‘I wonder, will everybody hate them then? Or will it be different? I remember years ago, playing tennis with some German girls at Eastbourne.’
‘Tennis?’ he repeated. ‘Elizabeth, whatever are you talking about?’ He rose too. ‘Are we going to bed?’ he inquired.
She smiled at him. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It was all going through my mind this evening, that’s all.’ She waited. ‘There’s something I wanted to show you,’ she said. ‘It might be useful.’
‘What’s that? You’re being very odd tonight, Elizabeth.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ She went into the kitchen prepared to tell the lie. ‘Mrs Mainprice found this in the loft,’ she called. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’
Mystified, a little impatient, he waited. She returned holding a British Army officer’s uniform on a hanger. Robert’s astonishment caused him to knock his empty cup from its saucer. ‘Good God,’ he breathed. ‘Where . . .? Whose . . .?’
The Dearest and the Best Page 17