‘Come along,’ urged Millie. ‘You stand between us.’
The quartet joined the elongated chain, facing inwards, all the faces beaming in the smoke. The band bounced into the first notes.
‘You put your left arm in, your left arm out, in-out, in-out, shake it all about. You do the Hokey Cokey, and you turn around, that’s what it’s all about. Hi!’
The carefree sound filtered through the wooden seams of the old pavilion. The door had been opened to admit some air and the thick curtain had been tugged across it to keep the light from straying.
‘Ohhhhhh, the Hokey Cokey.’
It’s crazy, but it’s Okeee . . .’
Out on to the moonlit cricket field the chorus drifted, where two limping, trying-to-run figures were making for the pavilion. Johanes Van Lorn tugged Mrs Spofforth along by her bony hand. The Dutchman was confused and panicky.
‘Hokey Cokey,’ he echoed. ‘These people are mad.’ He started forward again. ‘Come, we must tell them the news.’
As they staggered on another messenger was pounding, heavy-booted, through the village from the LDV guard post towards the green and the pavilion. George Lavington, in his musty LDV uniform, panted as he ran carrying an envelope thrust out in front of him like a relay runner carrying a baton to the next man. He blundered into the pavilion as the villagers were crowded about Mrs Spofforth and Mr Van Lorn. ‘Mr Lovatt,’ he interrupted. ‘Mr Lovatt, sir, there’s a message.’
Robert stepped importantly forward and read the slip of paper. ‘Observation post at Lymington,’ he said to John Lampard, ‘report a plane – probably a Hun – down in the forest.’ He looked about him eagerly for his men. ‘We’d better find him before somebody else does.’
The horse was nervous in the night. It gave shies and snorts at shadowed objects and Bess had to urge him along thin paths and under the low branches of clustered trees. ‘Merlin, come on now, Merlin, for Christ’s sake. Nearly there. Come on, damn you.’
She was herself apprehensive. Twice she halted on the upward ride, debating whether to turn and try to regain the vanished road. Around and underfoot all was black, the sky a shade paler with a new moon on the rise.
The upland part of the forest, most of it rough moor, was saucered in places and the depressions, despite the dry summer, harboured boggy ponds through which the horse trudged uncertainly. Animal and rider stopped, startled at the cackle of a night creature.
But they went on, progressing tentatively towards the ridge that formed the skyline. It had a ragged fringe of low trees, like unkempt hair, and as Bess reached the final gradient, she caught her breath as she thought she saw a brief slip of light among the branches. She pulled the horse up and it pawed the mossy ground unhappily. There it was again, the light, certain and distinct now, moving about, reflected on the thin limbs of the copse. Bess hesitated for the final time. Biting her lip, she considered dismounting and creeping the rest of the way. But she felt safer on the horse. Whispering she urged Merlin forward. They moved from the upland grass into the scattered branches and out on to the ridge and there she halted again and saw what had happened.
The moon was small but had given a faint illumination to the shallow vale above which she stood. In the centre of the basin, flat as a butterfly pinned to a board, was the aeroplane. The torchlight was fluttering near the cockpit and she could see a figure moving and crouched. Then the beam jolted along the fuselage of the plane and with a sick start she saw the Nazi swastika on its flank. At that moment the man saw her and the beam of the flashlight picked her out, sitting white-faced upon the horse. Merlin snorted but only quivered. Bess held him. ‘Please help.’ The voice came through the dimness. ‘I need help.’
She called back: ‘I’m coming.’ The firmness of her tone surprised her but she was aware of her trembling as she dismounted and, looping the rein around a branch, walked down the gradient towards the fallen aircraft. At once she saw that it had come to rest in a long, reedy mire, the sort that the basins of the forest held throughout the year. She was not familiar with this place but she had seen others like it. The wild horses and the forest donkeys drank there.
‘It is good,’ said the man. She could perceive the oval of his face now. ‘You will help. My comrade is hurt. He will die, I think.’
Bess had reached the side of the marshy ground, and the plane’s wing with its black and white cross thrust towards her like a plank. ‘It is safe,’ said the German. He stood up and she realized, with a kind of relief, that she was taller than he.
‘What can I do?’ she said. ‘Where is the other man?’
‘In the plane now,’ replied the airman. ‘There is much blood. You can step along the wing, lady. It is safe.’
Bess wondered whether he were assuring her about the metal or himself. Bravely she stepped on to the wing and walked carefully towards him. It was a curious meeting. He stood and said: ‘I am Paul Heinz Teller.’
‘Bess Spofforth,’ she strangely heard herself answering. He was broad and young, his eyes bright in the gloom. His flying helmet, its strap and buckle hanging, framed his face like the bonnet of a baby. He was more than an inch shorter than her. She had a fleeting thought that he might want to shake hands and that she should refuse. She looked towards his waist for signs of a gun but she could see none.
‘Let’s do something for him,’ she said decisively. ‘Is he very badly hurt?’
‘I think he will die,’ repeated the German. ‘We must get him from that place and help him.’
Bess moved towards the open cockpit. The second man was unconscious, lolled back, his head hardly seeming attached to his neck.
‘The door is not good,’ said the pilot. ‘It is broken, see. I cannot open, so we must lift him from there. I have a bag with dressings and those things.’ He climbed up on to the plane, so that he was above his comrade. ‘You must also,’ he beckoned to the girl.
Bess, scarcely believing what was happening, found herself clambering up the side of the aircraft. The young German held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her up, then reached down, slipped the parachute harness from his comrade and freed the seat belt. Bess could smell the blood. The man’s face was like snow. The pilot made a small sound, like a sob, and reached down. He straightened up after a moment and said to her, ‘He breathed a few minutes ago, lady. But now there is nothing. He has died for the Führer.’
Like massed shadows the villagers streamed from the dance, their voices babbling across the moonlit field. Robert led the way, like the leader of a sheriff’s posse, striding out with his Local Defence Volunteers and the uniformed Harry a fraction behind. Mrs Spofforth, enjoying the drama, flapped along with Elizabeth and Millie, Van Lorn stern-faced beside her.
The grandmother pulled her huge woolly coat closer about her shoulders and sounded off again: ‘She’s probably dead by now! Serve her right, leaving me jammed in the bath!’ She pointed out the Dutchman to the two women. ‘He had to pull me out.’
Van Lorn raised his ragged eyes towards the new moon. ‘Not a nice thing,’ he muttered mildly.
‘Harry,’ called Elizabeth when they had reached the road, ‘hadn’t you better go home and put some old clothes on? You mustn’t spoil your uniform on what might well be a wild goose chase.’
‘Well, I’m going like this,’ Robert put in fiercely. ‘We have to move into action swiftly.’
Elizabeth regarded the evening suit. ‘Well, you can’t very well do much more damage to that, dear,’ she observed.
‘For God’s sake, take it seriously, Elizabeth,’ he said hoarsely, putting his big head nearer her ear. ‘The girl may be in genuine danger. There’s a Luftwaffe plane crashed somewhere out there, remember.’
Elizabeth said: ‘I’ll go home and bring two pairs of dungarees. You might need that evening suit again.’
‘Bring the revolver too, will you,’ he called after her. ‘It’s in the safe.’
She felt like calling back, ‘And the bullet?’ but she did not want to humiliate him.
>
She went up the night road with Millie. Their laughter floated back. Damned women, thought Robert. He wheeled on his men. ‘All right, chaps. Everybody rendezvous at the Spofforth house in fifteen minutes. We’ll need torches and sticks. And, of course, weapons. I’ll bring the tommy-gun.’ He looked up at the July sky. ‘At least we’ve got a modicum of moon.’
Donald Petrie said, ‘It won’t be for long. There’s rain on the way. What about roping in that gypsy, Cooper? He knows everywhere in the forest.’
Robert agreed at once. ‘We need a tracker.’ He brightened. ‘Like the last of the Mohicans.’ The group scattered to their homes, Robert striding with Harry towards the LDV guard post. Mrs Spofforth was escorted home by Van Lorn, the old pair quarrelling and stumbling along the narrow pavement through the village.
‘Your mother thinks it’s all some sort of schoolboy lark,’ grumbled Robert.
‘In this case she’s offhand because she doesn’t like Bess,’ said Harry.
His father briefly stopped in his stride. ‘Good God, doesn’t she? And why not?’
Harry swallowed in the dark. ‘Oh, nothing. She’s just taken a dislike.’
The older man was striding on. ‘Thinks you’ve been sowing the wild oats in that direction, does she?’ Harry gulped with surprise. His father gave a fierce sniff and added amazingly: Well, don’t blame you. Would have done myself at one time. Women never understand that sort of thing, you know.’ They marched in new silence to the LDV post.
In the oil-lamp light Malcolm Smith and Sid Root sat crouched on boxes staring up at the morse key as if it were a spirit planchette board. They stood up as Robert and Harry came round the black-out blanket, their shadows giants on the whitewashed wall.
‘Any news?’ asked Robert.
‘Not a tap,’ said Malcolm looking at the morse key again.
‘We been thinking we might ’ear,’ said Sid Root.
‘We’re going to search the forest,’ Robert told them decisively.
The two men looked surprised. ‘All of it, Mr Lovatt?’ inquired Sid.
‘No, Root, not all of it. We’re hoping for some leads.’ He rolled his eyes towards Harry.
Millie brought two folded pairs of garden dungarees. Elizabeth, she said, would be coming shortly with coffee and sandwiches. Harry said: ‘She doesn’t believe it’s real, does she?’
Millie said: ‘She thinks it’s just another bit of Spofforth family drama. So do I, for what it’s worth.’
She watched him climbing into the overalls. Her hand went out and she helped him pull them up around his neck. He glanced at her and nodded in amusement towards his father struggling to pull the trousers over his evening clothes like a pantomime horse getting dressed.
‘Ah, here are the rations,’ said Millie. Elizabeth came through the shadows at the door carrying a haversack which she placed heavily on the table. ‘Enough there for three weeks,’ she announced. ‘Bring back anything you don’t finish. We can brighten up any left-overs for the Red Cross tea on Thursday.’ Seriously she regarded Robert who was taking the tommy-gun to pieces. She handed him Major-General Sound’s revolver in its holster. He growled his thanks. ‘Do you really think it’s worth going out there at this time of night?’ she asked. ‘You know how difficult it can be in the forest in the dark. If I know anything, Bess Spofforth has probably ridden over to some friend at Linley Green or somewhere and forgotten to telephone.’
‘There is also a report of a crashed German plane,’ Robert pointed out politely but without looking up from the tommy-gun. ‘We can’t ignore that.’ He continued to examine the gun. Harry could see that his mother was angry. It was a long time since he had seen her like that. She turned and walked towards the door.
‘I imagine,’ she said narrowly, only half turning about, ‘that whatever situation that young lady finds herself in, she will be more than able to adapt to it. Good night, Harry. Good night, Robert.’
‘Good night, mother,’ said Harry. He moved forward towards her then stopped, annoyed by the childishness of the scene. The other men were watching.
‘Good night, dear,’ added Robert casually, after a pause, and when she was almost gone. He still did not look up. He slammed the tommy-gun magazine home with emphasis. ‘Don’t worry about us.’
A few minutes later they left the LDV post and went, already in single file, along the village street towards the Spofforth house. Robert led the rank, his hand patting the huge and shining holster; Harry followed, self-consciously carrying the tommy-gun. The dungarees retained the smell of the garden compost heap. The moon was even less certain now, clouds were mustering, although the air remained breezeless and close.
Petrie had joined them, and Stevens, summoned from his house, with Gates the gamekeeper and Rob Noyes, his stark face shadowed by his insurance man’s bowler hat. Malcolm Smith and Sid Root had been left to man the guard post. Outside the Spofforth house, the Dove brothers and a dozen others were waiting. Robert confronted the contingent. ‘This is our first definite operation,’ he told them grimly. ‘Other units, army and LDV, will be searching by now. Let’s be the first to find the girl or the Jerry, preferably the Jerry.’
He was interrupted by Mrs Spofforth bellowing from an upstairs window: ‘She went up that way, Lovatt! Straight up the bloody road. Left a helpless old woman in the bath.’
Robert sighed. ‘Thank you, Mrs Spofforth. Go off to bed now. You’re showing a light, you know.’
‘That’s not all I’ve been showing tonight,’ the brazen old woman retorted.
It was her final word of the night. Violently she slammed down the sash and Robert, making sure she had actually gone, turned to his men. ‘We’ll keep in single file for the time being,’ he told them. ‘There’s no point in spreading out, not in the dark. We’ll be falling down holes or getting lost ourselves. If anyone spots anything odd, he gives warning with an owl-hoot. Understood?’
They nodded uncomfortable agreement. It was difficult to believe it was real. ‘What about the gypsy?’ asked Petrie. ‘I think he would be pretty useful up there.’
‘I know where he is,’ offered Gates grimly. ‘The Coopers have been camping out at High Copse. Helping themselves to my pheasants.’
‘He is a good horse,’ nodded the German briskly. He walked round the animal and patted its haunch. Bess did not know what to do. The clouds had covered the splintered moon and the stars and they were alone in the dark countryside, with a newly sprung wind wheezing through the scraggy trees. ‘I have a horse in France,’ he continued. ‘Every day when I am not flying I ride him.’
Bess said: ‘If you rode this one you might be able to escape.’ She was afraid of his calmness. She added unconvincingly: ‘You might reach the coast and steal a boat. I bet you could get to France.’
The young man laughed. ‘It would be a famous thing, I think. But in the Luftwaffe uniform I think maybe the soldiers would see me.’ He regarded her quizzically in the darkness. Their eyes were used to it now. She could clearly see his confident smile. ‘But maybe I take your clothes and ride to the sea.’
‘You could try it,’ she said defiantly. She knew she was the prisoner.
He grinned. ‘You want me to go, I think, lady.’
Bess felt hollow. ‘Well, I wouldn’t be sorry,’ she said.
His arm went from the horse’s rump to her. She started back but he was quick to reassure. ‘Please, you must not be afraid. You are with a German officer not a Russian. We will wait for the daytime to come and then you can take me to the English as prisoner.’ His hand patted her sleeve. ‘You will be famous for your braveness. And I will wait a little time until my comrades come to unlock the prison door. It will not be so long.’
A little reassured, Bess murmured, ‘Thank you.’ She looked around and said: ‘It is no good trying to leave here now. This is a terrible place for wandering about in the dark.’
Casually he sat down on the rising ground and then moved over, as if on a couch, to make room for her.
‘I did not know there are such places in England. I thought it was a country too small to have places where you can be lost.’
‘It’s not that small,’ Bess retorted with sudden spirit. ‘You just wait.’
He laughed jovially. ‘Very good, lady,’ he said. ‘That is loving of your country.’ He became thoughtful. ‘All countries are big when you are a soldier. When you have to win them.’
‘Why win them then?’ she asked. Her fears were almost gone now. And – if she got through the night safely – she was going to be a heroine. And he seemed a decent man.
‘We win them because in war you must win, or you lose,’ he shrugged. ‘Already I have my brother dead and my friend from my school. And now Alfred in the Messerschmitt.’ He nodded towards the crouching plane. ‘We pay a big price for our winnings.’
A skein of drizzle drifted across the clearing. He wiped it away from his head, straightening his fair hair as he did so. ‘The English rain,’ he murmured. ‘It is true about the English rain.’
‘Nonsense,’ Bess replied sharply. ‘It’s been the most beautiful summer. Sunshine all the time. This is the first rain we’ve had for weeks. Actually we can do with it for the crops.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he pacified. ‘Please, lady, I am sorry I insult the English rain. But it will make us wet.’
‘Not half it won’t,’ she said, getting up and spreading her hands above her head.
‘This is not good,’ he said, trying to do the same thing. ‘Is there nowhere?’ As he said it the drops lessened, the rain seeming to have second thoughts. ‘Maybe it is not coming,’ he suggested.
‘Don’t count your chickens,’ she said. ‘It will be back. There’s plenty up there. We’ll get soaked. I can sit under the horse’s belly. I’ve done that before now. He doesn’t mind. I just hang on to his leg like a post to keep him still. But he might not like you doing it. In any case, there’s not enough room and he is apt to pee.’
He did not understand because she spoke quickly. He said: ‘There is something. I have my parachute. It will make a roof for us. Like a tent.’
The Dearest and the Best Page 33