Laughter, calls and sunshine mixed in the meadow. The man with one leg and the hurdy-gurdy played his revolving songs, making a sly flanking movement towards the band, edging ever closer, intent on putting them off their tune. The tug-of-war teams were sitting, legs astride, on the grass, beer and lemonade bottles to their lips, sweating in their vests. One of the soldiers lay on his back, hands across his stomach, grinning at the homely sky.
Hob Hobson was arguing bitterly with George Lavington who had won a pig at bowling but refused to take his IOU for two to be redeemed after the war. George, red-cheeked, exploded: ‘There might not be an after-the-war!’
Children were riding the imported seaside donkeys, the animals stopping to graze frequently and refusing all threats and cajoling, having quickly realized it was better to labour on grass than sand. The fresh green cloak of the forest stretched out and slightly up from the village and its animated field; miles of it, reaching to the horizon of the three sail-like hills and the June sky. Harry and Bess walked that way.
Strolling a little apart, they left the road and took the single thread of worn, pale path, through the deep green and blazing yellow of the gorse. The way wriggled and rose, the skyline broken oddly by bent-backed trees that seemed also to be tramping up the hill, like vagrants.
When the way narrowed Harry and Bess had to walk closer and he put her hand in his. They hardly spoke. Around them the countryside was falling away like a skirt, the village changing shape every few paces, the river showing shining patches, the farm fields between the road and the forest forming a quilt. The meadow where the fête was taking place was temporarily blocked out by a secondary rise in the ground and some high furze, but then it moved into view again and they paused, taking in the air, the sun and the view. The fête was all coloured figures among the white tents. The notes of the band wafted towards them.
‘I can see your mother,’ Bess mentioned maliciously. ‘See her down there.’ She pointed. ‘She’s rushing about. I think she’s searching for you.’
He laughed guiltily. ‘Don’t, please,’ he pleaded. ‘She can’t help it. She still thinks I’m a kid.’
She did not pursue her teasing. ‘It’s years since I’ve been up here,’ she said reflectively. ‘It’s funny how you stop doing some things when you grow up, isn’t it. I mean, we used to come up here all the time, didn’t we. The whole gang of us.’
‘Are you sorry you came back to Binford?’ he asked. Once more they began to walk easily up the slope. Before the pause they had released hands but now she slotted hers in acquiescence into his.
‘I’d rather be in London, if that’s what you mean,’ she said. ‘It’s not much fun living with my batty gran.’ She glanced inquisitively at him. ‘I bet you have a good time in Portsmouth, don’t you? Are the streets paved with wicked women?’
‘All I’ve been doing is marching sailors around, filling sandbags and learning the basics of the Maxim machine gun, nineteen-fourteen version,’ he replied.
‘You haven’t answered the question,’ she said but did not pursue it.
They reached the forehead of the hill. The rough gorse gave way to a plateau of comfortable grass. There was a basin in the ground which had gathered a pool, the pausing place of a forest stream, before it continued running down the flank of the mound. ‘It’s still here,’ she laughed. ‘Remember when we built a dam, all of us, and we waited at the bottom to see what happened when it burst.’
‘And it flooded the road,’ he finished. ‘That caused a lot of bother, didn’t it.’
‘I got out of it,’ she said slyly. ‘I lied.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I remember.’
They sat on the brow of the plateau, looking out over the far-reaching country. The sky and the land and sea merged in distant mist. The umphing of the band drifted to them.
‘It was funny, your brother and Millie Johnson getting married, wasn’t it,’ she mentioned suddenly. ‘I suppose it was sort of expected, but I thought they’d avoid it in the end.’ She looked at him from the side of her eye. ‘I always thought she’d marry you.’
‘Me?’ He was genuinely surprised. ‘But . . . well, she’s older than me, for a start.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They were the oldest ones, weren’t they. Are they happy?’
‘Oh yes, of course. But he’s away quite a bit at the moment, that’s all. Millie gets a bit lonely.’
‘You should go and comfort her,’ she suggested mischievously. ‘James was always a bit of a bore.’
Harry said: ‘You do say some odd things.’
She was moving away and did not answer. ‘Let’s see if we can still drink like we used to from the stream,’ she suggested. She was walking back to the cup in the land. He watched, pleasured and surprised, as she lowered herself on her knees and then gradually forward flat on her stomach with her chin over the clear revolving water. She looked around. ‘Come on. And you. You haven’t got your nice uniform on.’
His eyes were fixed on the backs of her legs. Moving to her side he lay on his stomach facing the pool. The slim, silken stream toppled over the lip of its neat fall, scarcely two feet high, into the pool sending out eddies, bubbles and low liquid sounds.
Bess began to giggle against the ground. ‘You go first. Try and get a mouthful.’ Harry opened his mouth and tried to position his head so that the water ran into his mouth with only his cheek getting wet. He wriggled forward and did it.
‘Harry! You can still do it!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s marvellous. After all this time.’
‘It’s only ten years,’ he protested, levering himself up and wiping his mouth and cheek with his hand. ‘We’re not ancient. Not yet.’
‘But we will be one day,’ she said. Her face clouded as if she were wondering how long it would take, but then she brightened. ‘I bet I can still do it too. But you’ll have to hold my hair back, I don’t want it getting soaked. I had short hair then. And I didn’t care anyway.’
She lay, face down, on the rim of the pool. He found himself almost stifled by enjoyment, her hoisted dress, the fawn skin across the backs of her thighs, her soft hair bunched in his hand. ‘Harry,’ she warned over her shoulder. ‘You’re getting fruity.’
‘Can you blame me?’ he asked froggily.
‘I’m going now,’ she announced. ‘Here goes.’ She stretched her neck like a bird pecking a morsel, lowering her open mouth to the sliding surface. Steadying herself and closing her eyes she let the stream run into her mouth. She swallowed once and then choked, spluttered, and laughing struggled to get up. Harry still held her hair and as her head came up he kissed her neck and then her face and then her lips. She responded with forced lightness, pushing him gently from her. ‘One more go,’ she said decisively. ‘You try again. If you succeed . . . you will be rewarded. Like a knight in the olden days.’
Reluctantly he released her hair and, sighing, lay once more on his side on the bank and eased his mouth, sideways, a fraction at a time towards the water. He had almost touched it when she emitted a mischievous squeak and pushed his face and most of his head into the cold stream. He shouted and gasped, spitting out the water. Swiftly his hand went back and he caught her by the naked ankle as she tried to scramble up and escape.
‘Don’t! Don’t, you beast!’ she squealed like a child. ‘Leave me –’ She tumbled gently backwards on to the grass and he, laughing and panting, crawled after her. They fell together in a full embrace, his arms pulling her and holding her to him, his palms outstretched against the supple body below the soft dress; hers around his shirt, tugging at it. He tried to kiss her again but she bit him and they rolled together down the bank.
‘You trollop!’ he hooted.
‘Careful!’ she cried. ‘We’ll be in the water. Then you’ll have to explain that to your mummy.’
‘Stop it, Bess,’ he said seriously. They were lying sideways, Harry gazing into her amused face. ‘Stop it. Forget my mother, will you. I have.’
Her dilatory s
mile spread beautifully and he enabled her to roll until she was above him. She hitched her skirt hem up to her waist and bent her legs so that she was fully astride him, one egg-like knee each side of his hips. She regarded him with smug triumph. ‘Got you,’ she said.
‘And I’ve got you,’ he replied, almost choking. He could feel through his shirt, the skin of her legs and the bridge between them. She leaned down and put her lips over his nose. Her hands rubbed at his chest. His travelled up below her arms and cradled her perspiring breasts. Their eyes held each other, like a challenge, but then easing.
‘Remember when we did this first?’ he said. ‘I bet you don’t.’
‘Yes, I do, see. It was on the cricket field. Remember, it was almost dark. Just the two of us. We must have been fourteen or fifteen. We were too scared to do it properly.’
‘I’ll say. But not now, are we?’
His hands fell on to her thighs, spanning the tops of her legs. ‘I’m wearing pink drawers,’ she mentioned. ‘See.’ She lifted her hem a few more inches.
‘I noticed,’ he said.
‘You were always trying to get a look to see what colour they were. And all your pals.’
‘It’s one of the mysteries of boyhood,’ he shrugged.
‘Would you like me to take them off?’ she inquired with an odd formality. ‘I’ll have to dismount for a minute. You can take your trousers off then. Your legs aren’t all ghastly white are they?’
She was just talking for the sake of it, to fill in the moments. She rolled away, stood facing the other direction, and swiftly pulled the pink knickers away from her legs. He unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them down. ‘There, see,’ he muttered, staring at her revealed backside. ‘No white legs. We’ve been wearing shorts for the sandbag filling.’
Bess said nothing more. Eyes heavy, she pulled up the front of his shirt and sat on him again. Absent-mindedly, she began to unbutton the front of her dress. The buttons went to the waist. She leaned forward and kissed his lips. ‘Undo me at the back, Harry,’ she said.
He released the two small hooks that held her brassière and she herself pulled it down at the front. Her pale, pink-tipped breasts framed by the silk of the dress lolled in front of his nose. ‘There they are again,’ she said. His hands went to them and he rubbed them tenderly. Her face hardened and she bent towards him again. ‘God, I always feel so . . .’ she began but did not finish. He ran his tongue over the lovely skin and then on the pale nipples. Her body stiffened like iron clothed in velvet and she made a small face, almost of annoyance, as she manoeuvred herself into a position where she could allow him into her. They went together. Harry had so many things to engage him; her body, the sight and feel of it, her face now above him, eyes clenched, framed by her flying hair and the summer sky. High up in that sky came the sharp sound of machine-gun fire, drifting down to them like a falling firework.
‘Oh, don’t,’ she whispered, her face and her hair falling forward. ‘Not bloody now.’
Her mouth was wet against his cheek as, leaning forward, she moved herself frantically against him. ‘Trust them,’ she muttered. ‘Just now.’
‘Don’t worry, Bess,’ he soothed. ‘They’re miles away. Right up in the sky. I’m watching them. Don’t be frightened, darling.’
The words were scarcely spoken when a black-crossed German fighter plane screamed fifty feet over them, its roar and its wind filling their ears. Swiftly Harry rolled over on top of her then, and looked up only to throw himself across her again as another fighter, a Spitfire, shrieked low across the hill.
‘This fucking war,’ moaned Bess. ‘It never leaves you alone for a damned minute.’ She began to cry against his shirt.
Down on the fête field, everything but the organ grinder, whose name was Henry Bunigan, stopped at the first echo of the lofty machine-gun fire. The entire scene stilled as if captured by some sudden enchantment; the people who had been walking about, the children who had been scampering and shouting, those who were busy at the sideshows. Ben Bennett’s New Forest Arcadians were about to begin another item but their instruments had scarcely been raised when the crackle of the firing floated down to them. They turned with foreboding to the June sky. The villagers inside the tents moved unspeaking to the openings and stared up. Only the hurdy-gurdy man kept turning and playing for not only was he short of a leg but he was also deaf. The cranky music rolling from his machine, its single prop projecting like a crutch, drifted over the transfixed field. Robert Lovatt glared across the grass, as though the man were spoiling something. ‘Tell him to pipe down,’ he said to Lennie Dove. Lennie, still staring at the sky, trotted across the field, falling over one of the tug-of-war team as he went. The old organ man was looking intently down at the instrument as he wound the handle, like someone reading music. When Lennie touched him on the shoulder his wrinkled eyes came up in concern and then rose higher and followed Lennie’s upraised finger to squint at the sky. The firing had ceased for a moment; all that could be seen were two dots, like moving midges on a warm ceiling. Henry Bunigan did not understand. He looked about him at the entranced villagers, every face raised, and then returned to Lennie. ‘What’s goin’ on up there then?’ he inquired.
‘A dogfight,’ bellowed Lennie in his ear. The hurdy-gurdy man seemed surprised. ‘Aeroplanes,’ shouted Lennie further. He manoeuvred his hands about. ‘Up there. Rat-at-tat.’
‘They won’t be hearing me,’ pointed out Henry in a hurt way. He began to turn the handle again and a handful of metallic notes clattered out making people scowl across to him and wave their hands for him to be quiet. This upset the old man. He put a canvas cover over his hurdy-gurdy and, adjusting the strap around his neck, stumped away towards the gate, using the single prop of the instrument like a leg. ‘Wasting my time!’ he bellowed at the fête generally. A new rattle of gunfire came from the clouded combat. ‘I won’t bloody come again – so don’t go asking!’
Angrily he stumped out of the gate, then, on a thought, partly uncovered the organ again and began brazenly to turn the handle as he hopped and stumbled along the lane. The ancient music jangled over the hedge. ‘Novelties!’ bellowed Henry Bunigan above his own noise. ‘All they want these days, bloody novelties!’
In the field the silent people continued to watch the remote battle, as the two planes turned in the blue spaces of the sky or vanished behind a yellow cloud. Robert had his binoculars on the battle. ‘Spitfire, sir,’ he reported to Major-General Sound, who was now standing, unlike all the others, looking at the ground by his feet, appearing to listen rather than see. ‘And an ME one-o-nine.’
‘How the hell can you see its number?’ demanded the old soldier irritably. ‘It’s damned well miles up. God, give me the time when they fought engagements within a reasonably accessible area.’
Both aircraft disappeared behind the biggest of the loitering clouds and then there came a thud, a dull echo like someone striking a carpet, before a plane appeared, curling from below the creamy clouds, spiralling and dropping towards the earth, a thoughtful wisp of smoke at its tail.
‘Got him!’ shouted Robert joyously, waving the field glasses. ‘Got the swine! Well done, Spitfire!’ Everyone in the field jumped jubilantly and cheered, especially the children. The villagers advanced, coming out of the shadows of the tents into the centre clearing to watch the distant dropping aeroplane. The Dunkirk soldiers stood smiling towards heaven, the Local Defence Volunteers stiffened. Amid it all Elizabeth and Millie now stood mutely and watched the dying machine fall to earth.
‘There goes our chap!’ bellowed Robert, pointing. ‘Well done, Spitfire! Off you go home!’
Alan Stevens glanced at Don Petrie who watched the solitary flier turn away to the south. ‘If he’s going home,’ he said, ‘he’s going a funny way about it, don’t you think?’
Petrie nodded silently. He watched the plane clear some cloud and then continue. It was rolling in the sky as it went. ‘Due south,’ he said.
Two boys ran acro
ss the fête field towards Robert. One, in familiar green, was Tommy Oakes. ‘Mr Lovatt,’ he panted. ‘Look. See over there.’ Others were pointing also. Robert raised the glasses. ‘Parachute,’ he exclaimed. ‘Jerry coming down.’ He snapped around. ‘Platoon!’ he ordered. ‘At the double!’
The Local Defence Volunteers all but collided with each other in their rush to reach the rifles and shotguns stacked at the back of the tent. ‘Double march!’ bellowed Robert. ‘Come along, men!’ He swung on MajorGeneral Sound. ‘Permission to take action, sir?’ he inquired with a snap salute.
The older soldier appeared perplexed. ‘Yes . . . yes, you carry on,’ he nodded eventually. ‘Get the blighter.’
Robert surveyed the field worriedly. ‘Bowley,’ he said briskly, his eye lighting on the station porter, who wore his LDV armband over his railway uniform. ‘You’re used to looking after things – guard the stall.’
Ben Bowley nodded in dumb disappointment. People were beginning to stream towards the gate. ‘Stop!’ bellowed Robert. ‘Stop at once! That Nazi is armed. He won’t show any mercy.’ He waved his arm like a cavalry officer and the LDV unit ran clumsily over the grass, between the sideshows and the tents, Robert still ordering the villagers aside to allow his troops to pass. Painfully, Stevens, holding his ribs, ran with the men.
In a moment the field was almost deserted. Major-General Sound sat down heavily. ‘I’m not sure I like it,’ he mentioned thoughtfully to Elizabeth. ‘This sort of war. Women and children charging around like dragoons.’ She said she would get him a cup of tea and he thanked her. Mrs Spofforth and her Dutch refugee had gone home.
The major-general, stumping over the guy ropes, followed Elizabeth to the tea tent. She was standing with a huge enamel teapot amid the deserted tables. The old soldier nodded approvingly at the pot. ‘Jolly sensible size,’ he commented.
The Dearest and the Best Page 27