‘He’s here, Harry,’ came a voice through the haze. He recognized Stevens, the schoolteacher. His coat and shirt had been ripped away, and his exposed chest was raw. ‘I think he’ll be all right.’ He stared at the grotesque Harry. ‘Your brother’s on the other side of the sandbags.’
‘Oh God,’ sobbed Harry. ‘Oh God, what’s all this? Jesus Christ. Jesus . . . Jesus.’ Weeping, he went towards his father.
Robert was lying against some of the displaced sandbags, his eyes wide as if in disbelief. A dead seagull lay across his lap. ‘Harry, Harry,’ he muttered. ‘Are you all right, son?’
‘Yes, yes, dad, I’m all right.’ He moved the seagull’s body. He could see that his father’s leg was shattered. Stevens crawled forward with a field dressing and began to apply a tourniquet. ‘You’ll be all right, dad,’ gabbled Harry. ‘Won’t he?’ He turned his minstrel face at Stevens.
‘I should think so,’ said Stevens. His voice was calm but his face was wet and trembling. ‘Go and see your brother.’
‘Oh . . . right. James.’ Harry said it as if he could hardly recall the name. People were running with stretchers along the jetty, coming through the clearing haze, shouting to others behind. Harry hardly glanced at the dead forms hung over the sandbags. He slithered forward on his stomach. Everywhere smelled of cooking. He had an idiotic thought that his mother would be waiting for them with the Sunday joint. Oh, Christ . . . there was James.
His brother was lying on his back, his face thick with dust, his eyes staring through the coating and up accusingly into the Sunday sky. Harry choked. He heard a weak cawing sound coming from his own throat. At that moment two men with a stretcher appeared. Then two more with another. ‘Get yourself on to that,’ ordered one as they put down the stretcher. ‘You’re in no fit state to be walking around.’ Then he saw James. ‘Oh, blimey, look at him,’ he said sadly.
They carried them to an ambulance waiting on the quay, another had just arrived. People had come from the houses and were arriving from Binford. Children watched in astonishment. Only the voices of the ambulance men could be heard, although, for a moment, above the silence came the sound of a woman jabbering the Lord’s Prayer.
As they bore him on the stretcher Harry looked about him wildly. The shocked eyes stared back. They put him into the ambulance on the opposite side to his father. They carried the third stretcher in and put it on the rack above. Harry knew it was his brother. Then the outside scene was shut away by the closing of the doors. The ambulance turned and jolted along the quay. There was that cooking smell again. A grey-faced civil defence man stood in the back between the stretchers trying not to retch. Harry heard his father begin to sing:
‘Rose of England . . .’
The voice rose trembling from below:
‘Thou shalt fade not here . . .’
Another coughing pause. ‘Dad, dad,’ Harry pleaded from his stretcher.
‘Come on, Harry,’ urged Robert Lovatt. ‘Come on lad, sing. And you, James. You can sing. You used to be a good singer. Come on, boys . . .’
‘Though the sound of battle
Thunders near . . .’
Harry, tears mingling with the blood on his face, croaked along with the song:
‘Red shall thy petals be,
As rich wine untold
Shed by thy warriors
Who served thee of old.’
‘James,’ called his father upwards. ‘Come on, James, sing up. You’re not trying.’
Twenty-two
BY THE SECOND week of September London was under heavy air attack through every night and often by day. The acrid smell of the destruction through the hours of darkness mingled with the autumn mists as the people came blinking from the shelters and went to their work and about the other tasks of their day. Life went on in a strangely nonchalant manner. There were queues for the early afternoon cinemas while firemen were still sending water into gutted buildings in Leicester Square. During the deadly month a long-forecast river bus service began on the Thames, its first passengers cruising serenely between the smoking banks of the city.
Philip Benson thought how strange it all was. He picked his way between streets piled with rubble and charred office furniture to find a taxi to Belgravia. And yet perhaps not so strange. The human spirit was entirely adaptable and resilient.
‘Caught a packet down here last night, sir,’ said the cab driver conversationally. ‘Can’t get through half the streets. We been lucky so far where I live, but my kids get upset because we ’aven’t got any bombs like they’ve ’ad on Tottenham. It’s got to be a bit of a snobbery if you know what I mean, sir.’
Benson went to the house in the crescent and rang the shining brass bell. The buildings there were intact, curved and uncannily calm in the quiet of the autumn day. The neat, white face of Mrs Beauchamp opened the polished door.
He said kindly, ‘I’m Philip Benson. We spoke on the telephone.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘Please come in.’
He walked into the tidy room that James had known. ‘I hope that you weren’t troubled too much,’ he said. ‘When they came and took Major Lovatt’s belongings.’
‘No, sir, it was no trouble.’ He could see she was restraining herself and she bravely did not cry. ‘What a dreadful thing, sir. A good man like that.’
‘Yes, he was indeed,’ said Benson. ‘I’ve known the family all my life.’ He paused. ‘Have you had any news of the little boy who went to America?’
Her face cleared. ‘Oh yes. John Colin. I had a very nice letter from Miss Schorner, the American lady, only yesterday.’ She reached out and picked up a letter from the sideboard. ‘He’s having a lovely time. And he loved the aeroplane.’ She added wistfully, ‘Fancy a little tot like that going on an aeroplane. I was worried to death.’
There was something else she wanted to say. He waited and she opened a drawer. ‘I’m glad you’ve come, sir, because I didn’t quite know what to do about this. It came yesterday too.’ Still hesitant she handed another letter to him. ‘Air mail,’ she said. ‘For Major Lovatt.’
He glanced at the stamps and the Washington postmark. ‘Yes, of course. Thank you. I’ll be able to take care of this.’
‘Good, that’s very kind of you,’ said Mrs Beauchamp. ‘It’s a load off my mind. I didn’t know what to do . . . I suppose Miss Schorner has been told . . .’
He patted her hand. ‘Yes, she has. I attended to that. I must go now. Thank you for all you’ve done, Mrs Beauchamp.’
She said: ‘There was a postcard for Major Lovatt too.’ She handed him a black and white picture postcard. It was of the promenade at Douglas, Isle of Man.
Benson thanked her and handed her a visiting card. ‘Please telephone me at this number if you have anything that worries you. I shall be in touch with Miss Schorner. I’m sure she will let you know how John Colin is getting on.’
He left her and imagined her sad forehead touching the polished woodwork on the door on the other side as she closed it on him.
He walked along the crescent under the trees. The pub on the corner was open and he went into the saloon bar. Half the room was debris, the ceiling hanging like a white tongue, the walls crumbled. The landlord was polishing glasses. ‘Sit yourself down over there, sir,’ he invited. ‘A nice seat away from the shambles. You’re just in time. I was just about to close.’ He looked around jovially. ‘That’s if it’s possible to close this place.’
Benson ordered a Scotch and soda. He sat down on the proffered seat. ‘When did it happen?’ he asked. He did not know whether he should open the letter or simply destroy it. He decided to open it.
‘Two nights ago,’ said the landlord eyeing the wreckage. ‘Had a full house last night. People came to have a look at the damage. Never had so many in on a Monday.’
The man went to the room behind and Benson, still not completely certain, opened the letter. It read:
Darling James,
We are here! The trip was marvellous. Not a bump all the wa
y. John Colin enjoyed it and he tells me he is really impressed with the US of A!!!
Now I must tell you the thing I could not tell you before. I am to be married on 29 September – next week – here in Washington. It is one of those long-standing engagements. I know I will always love you.
Joanne
He looked at the picture postcard. It said: ‘It is good here in the Isle of Man. Thank you kindly. M. Bormann.’
He finished his Scotch. Joanne knew by now. His cable would have reached her. ‘Thank you,’ he called to the landlord, who appeared still wiping glasses and returned: ‘Thank you, sir. Good afternoon.’
A taxi came by and Benson hailed it. He was going to the House of Commons. He left the cab there and walked past Parliament to the centre of Westminster Bridge. Smoke was still drifting up-river from the previous night’s fires in the City. St Paul’s stood out bravely against the dun sky. Taking the letter and the postcard from his pocket he tore them into small pieces, let them flutter over the bridge and drift down to the flowing Thames.
The war had given ordinary people amazing experiences. Elizabeth could hardly believe that in the first week of October Mary Mainprice was back, dusting around the house as she always had done. She and her three children had been torpedoed in the ocean and had watched the liner City of Benares sink from their seats in a lifeboat. They were back in Liverpool two days later, picked up by a Royal Navy destroyer, and a taxi driver, who had refused to charge a fare, had driven them all the way from the northern seaport to their cottage in the New Forest.
Elizabeth left the house for the village. There had been a shower and the trees dripped. Robert, grumbling about his inactivity in hospital, was promised to be home at the end of the week. There were plenty of commanders, he had insisted, who had overcome the loss of a leg. It was nothing in the long run.
Harry had not been home since James’s funeral and had since been posted to Rosyth in Scotland, so they would not see so much of him. Millie was still working at the RAF station, every day now. Graham Smith had died. Without telling anyone in Binford, she went to his funeral the day after her husband’s.
Binford was not further directly troubled by the war, although a random raider machine-gunned a solitary fisherman who sat under an umbrella up-river from the village. No one knew until the body and the umbrella floated down the estuary. The umbrella was camouflaged and P C Brice was of the opinion that the German pilot might have thought it was a military target. They found the man’s creel containing several fine trout. His widow said she did not want them (she said she had eaten all the fish she could ever want) and they were shared between PC Brice and the ambulance men who recovered the body.
Hob Hobson was sweeping the front pavement of damp leaves when Elizabeth arrived at the shop. She saw something odd and walked a few paces along the pavement beyond the window. A large, round emergency water tank had been erected on the green by the Lymington Fire Brigade, much to the surprise and satisfaction of the local ducks. Tommy Oakes, in his cub’s uniform, stave held out like the rifle of a sentry, was standing guard over the water tank while the white and brown ducks cruised serenely.
Josh Millington, appearing behind his fence, a tarpaulin draped over what had once been his roof, called a greeting to her. ‘Look at that boy,’ interrupted Hob Hobson, who had peeped around the corner to see what had interested her. ‘That Oakes boy. Been there all the morning. Says he’s waiting for the Germans. And he’s not really in the wolf-cubs even.’
Elizabeth waved to Josh. He called back: ‘Looks like the weather’s on the turn now, Mrs Lovatt.’ He sniffed the air. ‘Still, it’s been a beautiful summer, ’asn’t it.’
Bibliography
Although The Dearest and The Best is a work of fiction, many of the events therein are, of course, based on true happenings in the summer of 1940. I would like to thank all those who have helped me with their memories of that period and also to acknowledge the following books and journals:
Sir Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 2: Their Finest Hour
Angus Calder, The People’s War, Britain 1939–1945
Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then
Margery Allingham, The Oaken Heart
E. M. Delafield, The Provincial Lady in War Time
Peter Fleming, Operation Sea Lion
Tom Harrisson, Living Through The Blitz
Roger Parkinson, Encyclopaedia of Modern War
E. S. Turner, The Phoney War – On the Home Front
James Wedgwood Drawbell, The Long Year
Frederick Grossmith, Dunkirk – A Miracle of Deliverance
Richard Collier, 1940 The World in Flames
Robert Goralski, World War II Almanac 1931–1945
Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe
Laurence Thomson, 1940 Year of Legend, Year of History
Gordon Beckles, Dunkirk and After
A. G. Street, From Dusk Till Dawn
Sir John Hammerton (ed.), War Illustrated, September 1939–October 1940
Leslie Thomas
Somerton
Somerset
December 1983
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781407096025
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Copyright © Leslie Thomas, 1984
Leslie Thomas has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
The quotation from ‘Rose of England’, composer Ivor Novello, author Christopher Hassell, 1937 by Chappell Music Ltd, is reprinted by kind permission
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom in 1984 by Methuen
First published in paperback in 1985 by Penguin Books
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