The Dearest and the Best

by Leslie Thomas

  Elizabeth stood, a trifle self-consciously, at attention beside her husband. She had adopted a less military attitude with her shoes a little apart and her hat at a minor angle, but a sharp army glance from Robert had altered that. Behind her Millie stood with the two sons, with the members of the parish council on one flank and the white boys of the church choir with the vicar on the other.

  A Sunday breeze fingered through the already yellowing leaves of the horse chestnuts. The spiky green nuts were thickening and the eyes of the choirboys were on them, for they would soon fall and split into the fat polished conkers and the traditional season would start. Harry glanced up to the sun leafing through the lemon foliage. As he looked down he caught the eye of Millie. They both looked away.

  Mrs Ben Bennett, extravagantly waving her dance-band baton, since she had no marching cane, now brought the New Forest Arcadians wheeling along in front of the church. They had performed creditably, although the drummer, bereft of his full kit, had beaten a doleful pavan on a single side-drum throughout the march. The ragged procession, the Home Guard with their bristling and ancient American carbines, the ARP wardens, the coastguard, the firemen, the green tweed ladies of the Women’s Voluntary Service, and the uniformed children curled in a haphazard crocodile before the saluting major-general. The children stared at him with frank interest, colliding with each other as they did so. Elizabeth realized quietly that this pathetic little piece of patriotism, this hapless show, was the reason that England would survive in the face of power and tyranny.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the rearguard of the procession, a rearguard lagging by more than two hundred yards. The man with the limp and the barrel organ and the lone wolf-cub turned the cottage corner to the church green, the boy stumbling along with the wheelbarrow and the defiant man cranking it hideously. Everyone watched their approach. The Reverend Clifford Pemberton closed his eyes to shut out the sight and hoped that those about might think he was deep in a private preliminary prayer. Bunigan and the boy stopped their march and their music and stood at the tail of the halted procession. ‘Everybody’s ’ere now,’ called the organ man rudely and to no one in particular. ‘You can carry on with it now.’

  Pemberton had inside doubts about the validity of a national day of prayer at all. Why were they praying? That their enemies might perish? That Adolf Hitler might be struck by lightning or a plague? Christians were supposed to love their enemies, to pray for sinners, though their sins be at least crimson. They were supposed to, weren’t they? He felt that a prayer for the reformation of the Nazis offered up at that moment, however, might not be afforded a universal amen. He opted to compromise. He envied those nonconformist churches with notice boards proclaiming: ‘God so loved the world that He gave his Only begotten Son to die for Our Sins.’ To which there was an additional line which read: ‘According to the Scriptures.’ It had always seemed to him to be a let-out in case things were not as they appeared. Now gladly he resorted to the same compromise.

  ‘We will say a prayer here, as we stand,’ he announced from the small green hill. ‘And then we will file into the church for our service.’ The children squeezed their eyes tightly, as children do when praying, half thinking that to take even a peep would be invalidating. ‘Lord God,’ Pemberton prayed loudly. The barrel organ groaned, but it was only Bunigan leaning on the handle. The vicar continued echoingly: ‘As we are gathered here in our village today, our home, the place we love, we ask you to protect us from the power of our enemies. We pray for victory against them, that their tyranny and evil may be vanquished.’ He had a fleeting thought that somewhere in Germany another man might be saying something on similar lines. They would be trying to pray down each other! To whom would God, providing He was listening at all, give His right ear? At the end of the exhortation he uttered his compromise. ‘If it be Thy will,’ he added. No one, at least no one in Binford, noticed.

  Flushed with hymn singing, the hoary and likeable incantations of the Church of England, words that had mingled with the million sunlit dust particles and had echoed among the secrets of the church roof, the people of Binford went out into the village noon. Robert was pink with patriotism. He hummed: ‘I vow to thee my country,’ as he waited, behind the ladies, to shake hands with the vicar at the arched door. He ushered his sons before him, proudly, but also to allow himself time, privately, to reach his favourite line: ‘The dearest and the best.’

  ‘Good service,’ he grunted amiably to the vicar, whose eyes were still doubtful behind his glasses. ‘Fine singing, didn’t you think? I wish Hitler could have heard it. It might have shown him we mean business.’

  The vicar almost replied that the intention had not been so, but he desisted. ‘Lovely harvest weather now,’ he said instead. ‘Have you ever known such a beautiful summer?’

  Robert, slightly taken aback by the change to meteorology, said that he could not remember one. He stood aside, with his family, and watched the other villagers troop out, blinking in the light. A distant jangling told everyone that Bunigan was winding his barrel organ under the chestnuts, Tommy Oakes standing ready to wheel the barrow, the pair having slipped out of the choir door. The metallic tune, the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’, came not unpleasantly from below the bowing trees.

  People were issuing heavily from the church now and standing about talking on the green. Mrs Mainprice and her children shyly shook hands with the vicar, who remembered they were leaving: ‘Off to America, are we then?’ he enthused. ‘Splendid! What a wonderful chance for the youngsters.’

  Mary looked embarrassed, unsure, almost ready to cry. She shuffled on and then seeing Elizabeth encouraged her brood towards her. ‘I still don’t know whether it’s right,’ she sniffed. ‘Really, Mrs Lovatt. Looking around at all the people you know. And we’re, well . . . their father said it’s a good idea. He seems to think it will make us all rich.’

  Mary looked at her pleadingly. ‘You think it will be all right? Going across the sea and everything, I mean, Mrs Lovatt. I’m worried it won’t be safe.’

  Bending forward, Elizabeth kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m sure it will be quite all right,’ she said. She added a smile: ‘Just don’t get seasick, that’s all.’

  Harry, standing alongside his flushed father, saw Bess come out of the church. He had looked for her during the service but had not been able to see her among all the heads. She appeared from the shade holding her grandmother’s arm. ‘Better service today,’ Mrs Spofforth informed the vicar bluntly. ‘Not so much Popery. The Pope is Italian, you know, and you know who’s side those swine are on.’

  The vicar grimaced tightly and gently urged her on her way. Bess glanced towards Harry and he smiled. They walked the few yards towards each other and their hands touched briefly.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she whispered excitedly before he could speak. ‘I’m going back to London. My parents have given in. I’m going to work in Whitehall. My father’s got me a job with the Ministry of Aircraft Production.’

  Harry said he was glad: ‘You and Lord Beaverbrook,’ he said. ‘The war should soon be won.’

  ‘We shall see,’ she replied as if she believed it were possible. She leaned towards him. ‘You wouldn’t like to look after Merlin, would you?’ She saw the puzzlement on his face. ‘You know, my horse.’

  He could see she meant it. ‘Merlin?’ he echoed. ‘How can I keep a horse? I’m in the navy, not the cavalry.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you could keep it at home. Perhaps your mother might . . .’ She saw his expression again. ‘No, she wouldn’t, would she. She doesn’t like me and she wouldn’t like Merlin. It’s bloody mean, I think.’

  ‘Why not leave him with your grandmother?’ he suggested testily. ‘The old Dutchman could ride him.’

  Bess looked shocked. ‘Now who’s joking,’ she said. ‘That old fool spends half his time in bed now. With the bedclothes over his head. He’s hiding from the Germans.’

  ‘I can’t say I blame him,’ said Harry.
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br />   ‘Grandmother’s getting shot of him as soon as she can. She’s got her eye on two evacuees from Gibraltar. Two brothers about forty. A whole lot of them turned up in Southampton.’

  ‘Evacuees from Gibraltar?’

  ‘That’s right. They think the Spanish are going to invade them.’

  ‘And they’ve come here. God, I’ve heard about jumping from the frying pan into the fire.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I’ll write to you if you like. I’ve been writing to Paul.’

  ‘Who’s Paul?’

  ‘My German pilot. He’s in prison camp in Devon. I may go down and see him.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ breathed Harry. ‘Why don’t you take him a cake with a pair of wire cutters in it?’

  ‘Don’t be jealous,’ said Bess smiling. She looked towards Mrs Spofforth. She faced him again. ‘I must go now. I’ll see you, dear, sometime. Perhaps at the end of the war or something.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he said.

  The family were back at the house, standing in the sitting-room, the garden golden through the french windows, as they had done so many times in the former days; Robert, Elizabeth, James and Millie, and Harry arranged a little apart. Wadsworth lolled in the sun, half in, half out of the room. The English ritual of a drink before Sunday lunch, a meeting time, half an hour to be together even if it were only from habit. Then the air-raid siren sounded, undulating, over the forest, the village and the garden. The basset hound moaned as he always did at the noise. ‘Drat it,’ frowned Elizabeth: ‘It always seems to pick the most awkward moments. The joint is just done to a treat.’

  ‘Then I suggest we eat it,’ said Robert jovially. ‘It’s probably someone being trigger-happy. Half the time Jerry turns out to be heading somewhere else.’ Finishing his sherry he put the glass on the familiar table. He looked decisive. ‘On the other hand, I think I’ll just drop down to the post on the quay, I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’ He turned speculatively towards James and Harry. ‘Want to take a look?’ he suggested. ‘Give you some idea of what we’re doing.’

  Millie laughed and touched her father-in-law’s shoulder fondly. Elizabeth said: ‘Just the opportunity for a bit of showing off,’ she said. ‘Look out, Hitler – Binford is ready.’

  ‘Not at all. Not at all,’ answered Robert but without conviction. ‘I thought it might give these professionals some idea of what the rest of us have been up to these last couple of months. Show them we haven’t just been sitting on our backsides.’

  James grinned and said: ‘I’m glad you suggested it. The Prime Minister is always asking me about your state of readiness.’

  Robert flushed with pleasure. ‘Is he?’ he said. ‘Is he really?’

  ‘Oh, Robert,’ admonished Elizabeth.

  James said: ‘Actually, he is. He used the Binford unit, or at least my reports on it, as a sort of barometer for the Home Guard of the entire country.’ He nodded to his father. ‘Come on then, dad, let’s see what you’ve got.’

  ‘It might teach us all something,’ said Harry finishing his drink. ‘At Portsmouth there seems to be some notion that if you cover the whole place with sandbags then the Germans won’t notice you.’

  Elizabeth said: ‘Well, don’t be long, please. And no disappearing into the pub afterwards. It’s taken me long enough to get this piece of beef and I don’t want it ruined.’

  They reached the garden and James, turning, called back to Millie: ‘Do you want to come, Millie?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she returned. ‘I’ll help here. I’ve seen quite enough of the war lately, thank you.’

  The men walked across the bright lawn towards the gate. ‘What did she mean by that?’ asked James. ‘She’s seen enough of the war lately.’

  His father was climbing into the car. ‘Official duties,’ he explained tapping the car a little shamefacedly. ‘And we can’t be late for lunch.’ He started the engine. ‘She meant,’ he said, ‘that she had a young pilot burned to a frazzle in front of her eyes the other evening. Right there at her feet. His plane made a crash landing and burst into flames. He survived, apparently, but only just. That’s what she meant.’

  James pursed his lips. ‘She didn’t mention it,’ he said.

  ‘You should try keeping in touch more,’ said his father, his eyes on the lane ahead.

  He added nothing to it and James said quietly: ‘Yes, I suppose I should. God, that must have been terrible for her.’ Harry was silent in the back of the car. They went through the village, past the black stump that had been Josh’s cottage.

  ‘Look at that. Poor old Josh,’ said Robert. ‘It touches everybody, this war. It’s not just for soldiers like it used to be. My whole ambition in life is to shoot down one of those blighters.’

  Harry said: ‘I take it you still only have the rifles.’

  ‘Unfortunately yes,’ answered his father. ‘There’s a promise of a Lewis gun, but it hasn’t turned up yet. It’s a bit frustrating firing at a bloody Heinkel with a sixty-year-old Yankee carbine, I can tell you. They were probably last used against the Indians.’

  He turned the car down on to the stony quay at Binford Haven and came to a bumpy stop alongside the two small warehouses. Harry took in the scene, as familiar as ever, almost unchanged since they had played down here among the boats and ropes when he was a child. The estuary was almost clear of craft now, it was true. They were drawn up on the hards or cosseted in inlets along the riverbank. But the water shone with the same lovely innocence, the banks were green with trees, the gulls hovered noisily and the air tasted faintly of seaweed. He climbed from the car and breathed it. His father was pointing down towards the end of the jetty that ran out into the river.

  ‘There it is, see it,’ he said. At the end of the jetty was a sandbagged emplacement topped by some rounded buttons that were the helmeted heads of the Home Guard. Robert, strutting out, led his sons along the wooden pier, the sound of their feet echoing in the silent Sunday air. ‘We worked out that it’s not uncommon for Jerry to come up the estuary, flying low,’ he explained as he puffed. ‘They use it as some sort of navigation or to keep their heads down so that the guns can’t get at them. I’ve suggested to higher authority that the army might like to put a field gun of some sort on the bank to let the blighter have it as he comes up the river. You don’t need an anti-aircraft gun, a damned anti-tank gun would do the trick.’ He turned to James and said wistfully, ‘Or one of those nice pom-poms, firing from nil elevation. Since Mr Churchill is interested in our doings, perhaps you might mention that to him the next time you meet for a beer.’

  Robert strode on purposefully. ‘In the meantime we live in hope that he comes along so low that we can get a pot-shot at him,’ he said. ‘Some hope.’

  They had almost reached the end of the jetty and the sand-bagged emplacement now. ‘Halt, who goes there?’ called a rural voice.

  ‘Friend,’ shouted Robert. The brothers each concealed a grin. ‘Commanding officer,’ continued Robert. ‘With his sons.’

  Harry could scarcely contain his smirk, but the old man was completely serious. ‘Advance friend . . . sir,’ called the sentry uncertainly. His head moved along the parapet of sandbags and he was revealed as Gates, the gamekeeper. ‘Nice day, sirs,’ he said reverting to his normal working voice.

  ‘Good day for a shoot, eh?’ offered James.

  ‘That’s what we been ’oping, sir,’ said Gates. ‘But Jerry ain’t shown ’is face yet.’ He looked out to sea. ‘That’s the way he comes,’ he announced with the air of a major strategist.

  But the German plane came the other way. From the landward side, creeping up on them, the sound of its engines masked by the trees and the rising land. It came in at two hundred feet and dropped a single, neat bomb, released so deliberately and accurately that it might have been dropped by hand.

  The aircraft was above them before they knew it, the fluttering shadow of a cross, and then the brief whine and a white explosion on the jetty, blowing the men in
all directions.

  Harry remembered only that he thought his ears had burst. He rolled over and over, like a tumbler, and sprawled against a pile of tar barrels that had been stacked on the quay for as long as he could remember. In boyhood they had served as a ship’s bridge or a fort. The air was whirling with hot dust, it was choking his throat and filled his eyes when he tried to see what had happened. Like a child sitting up for the first time he managed to get some support from the tar barrels. He pulled himself half upright and began shouting through the debris: ‘Dad! Dad! For Christ’s sake, dad!’

  His voice joined other shouts and the screeching of the gulls in the smoke and dust and he gradually began to discern crouched figures, like a shadowgraph in slow motion. His legs shook so much beneath him that they failed to support him and he fell into a sitting posture again. He felt warm blood running down his face. His hand went to his forehead and he stared down at his red-smeared palm. ‘Bastards,’ he moaned. ‘Rotten bastards.’

  Now he managed to stand again. Staggering forward, his legs bowed, he came to the place where the sandbagged emplacement had been. There was a great gap, like a mouthful taken out of one side, with prostrate forms dangling across the parapet. One man, whom he could not recognize, began an idiotic run past him towards the shore end of the quay. ‘Doctor’s away, I know!’ the man howled from the red hole in his black face. ‘Gone to Bournemouth! I’ll go for the dentist, Mr Lovatt. He’s bound to have some bandages and that.’

  Harry, shock still vibrating his body, nodded dumbly at the inanity and the man set off shouting and galloping wildly along the jetty. Stumbling a few more paces Harry saw that half the emplacement had fallen into the harbour. There was a body floating placidly face down on the water. Harry looked wildly about. ‘Dad?’ he asked quietly. ‘Dad?’