James agreed. ‘We began this war as though it were some new form of sport,’ he observed. ‘Everybody rushed about thinking it was very thrilling, but when not much happened they fell into a calmness that’s going to take a lot of shifting.’
‘That song – hanging out the washing . . .’ she said.
‘On the Siegfried Line?’ he finished. ‘It sounds pretty silly now.’
‘It’s a Boston two-step,’ she said to his surprise. ‘It’s the same tune as a song called “When we are married, we’ll have sausages for tea”.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘I know because I’ve been writing a piece about war songs.’
James regarded her with new interest.
They walked down through the steep street to the embankment. They were both going towards Westminster so they walked by the thick river. Big Ben’s tower reflected the copper evening light. Yellow smoke was streaming from Battersea Power Station. ‘People seem to be aware, though,’ she said eventually. ‘Under the calm. I went to a lunchtime recital in the park the other day, I often do, and I watched the faces of the people listening to the music. It’s almost as if the war, and the bad news, has given them something to live for – they’re even doing things that they might never have dreamed of doing before.’
‘Outdoor concerts are splendid,’ he agreed wryly. ‘The first thing the Germans do when they’ve occupied a town is to put their band in the park.’ He waited, then he said: ‘I understood that all American citizens were advised to leave for home two weeks ago.’
‘Well, this one isn’t going,’ she said. ‘Not yet anyway. I’m not strictly here on assignment. I’m just on a visit to my uncle and aunt. He’s at the US Embassy. He’s so sure he’s not going he’s joined the American squadron, or whatever it is, of Local Defence Volunteers. He’s scared the ambassador will find out – Kennedy – because Kennedy thinks you’re as good as beaten.’
At Northumberland Avenue a black London taxi cruised by and she hailed it and got in. They said good-bye. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in the park one lunchtime,’ he said. ‘Listening to the band.’
‘Sure,’ she smiled. ‘See you in the park, major.’
Each time, it seemed to him, he telephoned Millie, she was out. He could sense that the phone was sounding in an empty house. Eventually he spoke to her late in the evening when he was alone in the flat. He realized his tone was edgy. ‘At last,’ he said when she picked it up. ‘Where do you hide yourself all day?’
‘James,’ she admonished, trying to sound good-humoured,
‘I’m busy. You’re not the only one running a war, you know.’
‘What are you doing? Having bayonet practice?’ He eased his tone.
‘Not exactly. We did try shooting at some targets, your mother and I, but your father discovered us and became incredibly upset, so we had to stop. I go over to the RAF at Moyles Court three days a week now. I was there today. You sound tired.’
He sighed. ‘I suppose I do,’ he agreed. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for this job. I’m more like a rent collector than a soldier.’
‘There won’t be any soldiering now, will there?’ she suggested. ‘No fighting, that is, not until they come across.’ She paused. ‘Do you think they will?’
‘If they don’t they’re mad,’ he answered. ‘They’ve got us down and out. We got three hundred and fifty thousand out of Dunkirk, but that’s not an army, it’s a rabble.’
‘I know,’ confirmed Millie. ‘We’ve got hundreds of them here, under canvas. They’re drained, you can see that. I saw them this afternoon, sitting among the buttercups. That’s what I’ve been doing as well, helping your mother and the other ladies with feeding arrangements. The army hasn’t got enough kitchens or something. And we’ve got some refugees as well. They just turned up in Christchurch harbour from Holland and Belgium and we’ve been trying to sort them out, poor people. Most of them have been put in hotels in Bournemouth, although the hotels weren’t too keen. They’re people who’ve lost everything, James. Even hope. At least we’re still all together.’
‘Yes,’ he hesitated. ‘We’re still together.’
There was a pause at both ends. Then Millie said: ‘Will you be able to get home? At the weekend or something?’
‘I’ll try,’ he promised. ‘It won’t be for more than a few hours, though.’
‘Please try. I’d like to see you . . . again.’
He laughed dryly. ‘Yes, I’d like to see you too.’
‘We still love each other, don’t we? I still love you.’
‘That’s a silly thing to say,’ he told her. ‘You know we’re all right.’
‘Yes, I do, of course. Telephone if you think you can get down. Try and come this weekend.’
‘I’ll try. I’ll ask Winston.’
When he had replaced the receiver on the wall he poured himself a Scotch. He put out the lights in the flat and went unhappily to the windows. He opened the curtains. The stars were there, standing out finely above the lightless city. He thought that there must be people who had never noticed the night sky until the black-out. He gazed up. The barrage balloons were lurking like shadows. He could see their dark bellies. He swallowed the whisky and returned to the room, drawing the heavy curtains and switching on the light.
It was midnight. He turned on the radio for the news. The vibrations of Big Ben faded, gradually, as if reluctant to cease.
‘This is the BBC Home Service. The Dunkirk evacuation has been completed. An announcement from the War Office said tonight that a total of three hundred and fifty thousand troops had been brought back safely to Britain. Mr Churchill has spoken of “a miracle”. The Prime Minister is to make a statement tomorrow in the House of Commons.’
Tiredly James listened. Within himself he felt that it was all too late.
Towards the conclusion of the bulletin there was a report from America of the reactions of American correspondents to the plight of the British. James knew, like everyone else in Whitehall, that Joseph Kennedy, the US Ambassador, was certain that the British were finished and had told President Roosevelt so. But the observers quoted were not so sure. ‘The correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System this morning said that the spirit of Britain was like a shining light in a black world. He spoke of Dunkirk as an example of inspiration and innovation of which only England was capable. Miss Joanne Schorner, a London correspondent of the Washington Post, described visiting the wounded as they returned from the evacuation, and of their defiance, fortitude and good humour. They were, she said, looking forward to winning the war.’
There came a tap on the housekeeper’s door and James called ‘Come in.’ Mrs Beauchamp entered smiling. ‘Been listening, sir? I’m glad we knows where we are, at least. With our soldiers back home.’
He smiled and said he agreed with her.
‘Anything else tonight, sir?’ she asked. ‘Before I put the cat out.’
He shook his head. ‘How is young John Colin?’ he asked. ‘When are we going to see him again?’
Her face clouded. ‘Well, he should be coming down to London soon, sir, for a couple of days. His mum’s still in Paris but I suppose she’ll have to come home now, unless she wants the Jerries to capture her. But . . . but . . . she wrote saying that she might send John Colin to America. There’s a lot of children going, you know. She thinks it might be safer there for him.’ Her expression dropped to sadness and doubt and she mumbled: ‘But I don’t know about that.’
At noon the following day Philip Benson walked into James’s office and looked around quizzically, taking in the filing cabinet, the desk and the hatstand like a tall man standing in a corner. ‘It’s not much,’ he concluded. ‘But it’s better than a hole in the ground.’
‘Depends where the hole in the ground is located,’ smiled James. ‘What’s happening to our war today? Do you know any secrets?’
Benson said: ‘Only that the reason the German Navy didn’t bust up the Dunkirk operation was because they lost so many ship
s off Norway last month. Perhaps it wasn’t all such a waste after all.’ He sat down. ‘France looks pretty groggy, I’m afraid. The whole fabric is coming to bits over there. You know what the French are like for falling out among themselves and they’re doing that with a vengeance now. The Old Man is trying to persuade them to hang on, but they won’t. Their army is completely phut. Demoralized. Trudging back with their helmets stuck on the end of their rifles.’
‘Our invincible ally,’ said James sourly. ‘We’ll be on our own soon then.’
‘By the end of this month at the latest,’ shrugged Benson. ‘There are people who think it will be better that way. You know – good old John Bull on his island. Churchill will make a statement in the House this afternoon and I imagine he’ll tell us all – or nearly all – then. Warts and everything. Will you be there?’
Rising from the desk, James said: ‘Yes, I think I’d like to be. He fascinates me, you know. I can’t believe he’s real.’
‘That’s what he does to most people. That’s why we’ve got to have him. There is no one else. You have to believe in him even if, underneath, you suspect he might be a quack. Are you going anywhere for lunch?’
James hesitated. ‘Well, I usually just have a sandwich or something, and then I thought I’d take a stroll in the park and listen to the piano recital. It’s not often you hear Chopin in sunshine.’
‘It isn’t,’ Benson nodded. ‘Well, I’ll walk down with you.’
‘Oh, don’t let me stop you going to lunch or anything.’
‘Not at all.’ Benson glanced at his watch. ‘We could have a drink and then I could go off to gorge myself and you could feed on culture.’
James was conscious of his own embarrassment. ‘Come and listen if you like,’ he said foolishly. ‘I mean . . .’
‘Don’t care for the keyboard much,’ confessed Benson. ‘Not unless it’s Charlie Kunz.’
They walked down the polished stone stairs and out into London. There was a cocktail bar opposite the Houses of Parliament and they went in there and each had a gin. The place was crowded with Members, their mouths half-hidden by drinks, as if that was the part that needed replenishing; their gossiping faces close together, sweating, creased, like Cruikshank caricatures. ‘You know my father took himself off to Dunkirk?’ said James.
Benson laughed. ‘So I heard and I wasn’t surprised. Did he enjoy it?’
‘Disgusted,’ grinned James. ‘They took an old paddle steamer, him and some cronies, and the thing was sunk under them. Their cargo – and this is what annoyed him – was a horde of Luftwaffe prisoners and some French Africans.’
‘Good heavens, fancy bringing back prisoners. I thought it was difficult enough getting our own troops out. Still, who am I to say? People do very odd things.’
James finished his gin and said: ‘I must be going. There are so many people at these open-air concerts that it’s difficult to get anywhere near the front. It’s not like the Albert Hall.’
Benson smiled with some curiosity. ‘All right, then,’ he said agreeably. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in the House. Enjoy yourself.’
‘I’m sure I will,’ promised James awkwardly. ‘After all, it’s Chopin . . . and it’s a very nice day.’
She was standing under the park elms, outside the crowd, her face intent and content, listening to the piano in the bright light. He did not see her for some time because of the screen of people sitting on folded seats and grouped around the perimeter. The limpid music flowed over the famous park; the grass, the lake, with its cruising white pelicans, the full-leafed trees and the anti-aircraft guns.
The soloist, a man in a brown suit, played a prelude and a polonaise. There were some Polish airmen standing on the fringe of the crowd, faces still, eyes desolate to hear the sounds of their homeland. The recital was almost finished when James saw Joanne Schorner. He moved around the fringe of the audience and eventually stood beside her. She smiled, almost absently, as if she had seen him some time previously, and continued listening to the music. She was standing on a brief rise in the ground, a hump of roots from two trees, so that she could see over the heads in front of her. He saw that she had a small notebook and a gold pencil which slotted into it. She moved over on the knoll to make room for him.
They stood, elbows brushing, as the final piece was played, a popular theme, The Warsaw Concerto by Richard Addinsell. James glanced towards the Poles and saw that one small man was walking away alone across the park, as if he could bear it no more. At the final flourish the soloist stood and acknowledged the applause that floated over the grass and sent the London starlings whirling into the bland sky.
‘Wonderful,’ sighed Joanne as they walked back towards the buildings of Whitehall. ‘Music, sunshine, open air, blue sky, and those amazing creatures.’ She looked up at the barrage balloons. ‘Don’t you think they might be listening with those great ears?’
‘They all have names,’ James told her, looking up at the silver balloons. ‘One is called Herbert Morrison, one is the Bishop of London, and one, naturally, is Winston Churchill. But I haven’t been here long enough yet to know which is which.’
She stopped on the path, touched his sleeve, and, asking him to wait a moment, quickly wrote something in her notebook. Once more she looked above them. ‘That one must be Churchill. He looks kind of pugnacious. And that one, higher than the others, maybe that’s the Bishop because he’s floating nearer to God.’ She looked towards Big Ben and then at her watch, cross-checking them. ‘Are you going to the Commons this afternoon?’ she asked.
James said he was. ‘Whatever rough treatment we’re getting on the battlefield,’ he observed, ‘we’re making up for it in memorable words.’
The American regarded him unsurely. ‘You sound a little caustic,’ she observed.
‘Not at all. People need words at times like this. Words can keep us going. And Winston’s got a splendid vocabulary for emergencies.’ They continued to walk by the bright flower-beds. Some of the anti-aircraft gunners were throwing a child’s ball to each other.
James said: ‘If we’re ever overrun then you might see our exiles listening to Shakespeare in Central Park as those Poles listened to Chopin.’
They reached the road. A few cars, some military vehicles and several people on leisurely horseback passed by. Joanne smiled at the scene and shook her head. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon then, James,’ she said. ‘I have to go back to my apartment for a phone call. I have a reserved place in the gallery. It might be difficult to get in to see the show. You’d better be early.’
‘I’ll manage,’ he assured her with a grin. ‘Winston has promised he won’t start without me.’
Holding out her small hand she smiled frankly. ‘Same time, same place,’ she said. ‘See you then.’
Thirteen
BINFORD VILLAGE HALL, browed with thatch, was under the elms, a little apart from the houses, church and inn, across the cricket and football field, so that it fulfilled both the functions of sports pavilion and meeting-place. When Hob Hobson, the grocer, who was also the parish clerk, walked over the grass on the early June evening, the cricket team were practising their bowling and batting at the makeshift practice net. There had been showers that afternoon and the sky was washed and pale, with late creamy clouds in the east.
‘When you’ve finished fooling about, are you coming to the meeting?’ Hob demanded, shouting across the field. He had little patience with games. ‘It’s important. There’ll be no playing sports if the Jerries get here.’
Cat-calls floated across the pitch, for Hob was not popular, but he guessed the men and boys would leave their bats and be there.
Almost as soon as Hob had unlocked the pavilion and, grumbling, clattered away half a dozen fold-up tables left standing from the last whist drive, people began to arrive. There had been no time to place seats in rows. Hob called to the first-comers to take a chair from the concertina pile near the door and to begin making formal rows, close together.
Across the evening green they straggled, the inhabitants of the small place, anxious, puzzled, wondering why they had been summoned so importantly. The farmers and their workmen, the foresters, those who went by bus each day to work in the shops and businesses of Lyndhurst and Lymington, the elderly who had retired to the mild south and those whose families had been there for hundreds of anonymous years.
Lennie Dove came heavily across the grass carrying a bulky wooden radio set. ‘Mr Lovatt told me to bring it,’ he puffed at Hob. ‘So’s we can hear the news and Mr Churchill at nine. Some might not get home in time.’
‘Got batteries?’ asked Hob typically. ‘I have to account to the parish for the electricity, you know.’
‘Peter’s got the juice,’ sighed Lennie, nodding over his shoulder to his brother coming with a crowd of others across the grass. Their laughter drifted in the evening light. The cricketers were putting away their bats and pads in a long leather bag. Peter arrived with the radio batteries.
‘Soon get her fixed up, Hob,’ he assured the grocer. ‘Won’t be using a penny of the parish money, don’t you worry your brains about that.’ He glanced slyly at his brother. ‘Not charging us for the use of the table, I s’pose?’
Hob grunted and motioned them to put the radio set on the green-clothed table on the stage at the front of the hall. Already all the chairs were occupied, people sitting doggedly, as they always did whether it was a parish meeting or the Christmas pantomime, guarding their seats. At the rear others were standing three deep. Hob realized, with annoyance, that he had not provided for those who would be at the top table conducting the proceedings, and he fussily commandeered four chairs from a cottage family who were sitting less confidently in the back row.
Untidy Walter Beavan, the reporter of the New Forest Gazette, came into the hall and sniffed the air professionally. He made his way, as of right, to the side of the platform and took one of the chairs which Hob had just put in place. Pens, pencils and a pipe protruded from the pockets of his chaffed sports jacket. Taking out a grimy penknife he began to sharpen one of his pencils, letting the shavings drop on the stage. Hob frowned, then thought better of any comment. You never knew when you might need the press. He took the final chair from the downtrodden family, appropriately called Meek, that was occupied by the grandfather. The aching old man stood up.
The Dearest and the Best Page 24