Mrs. Tim Carries On

by D. E. Stevenson

  “It’s the same sort of thing,” continues Tubby earnestly. “It really is . . . you see it, don’t you? So you won’t worry about him, will you, Mrs. Tim, because I don’t mind betting that he’ll come through all right.”

  A drowning man clutches at a straw, so perhaps this is why I cling to Tubby’s story and am somewhat comforted. We talk for a little longer, and then Tubby gets up to go and I accompany him to the gate (for, to tell the truth, I am loath to part from him). Fortunately, as he turns away, I happen to notice a roll of manuscript in his pocket and have the presence of mind to enquire whether he has written anything lately.

  “Nothing much . . .” says Tubby in an embarrassed sort of voice, “at least I mean I have, really . . . but you don’t want to be bothered with it . . . and . . . well, it’s probably awfully rotten . . .”

  I cut short these incoherencies by removing the manuscript from Tubby’s pocket, and saying that of course I want to read it.

  Tubby says, “Oh well . . . but I don’t see why you should bother . . . it isn’t funny or anything . . . just an idea I had . . . quite footling . . . at least the idea wasn’t exactly footling, but I’ve made a hash of it. Well . . . thanks awfully . . . you’ll . . . you’ll tell me what you think . . . I mean . . . well . . . thanks awfully, Mrs. Tim.”

  DUNKIRK 1940.

  We were not broken men, we were betrayed

  O’ercome by cruel odds but undismayed.

  Out of the fog of treachery came we

  In Regiments, in Companies or one by one.

  We stood half dazed and looked upon the sea

  And, in the glory of the setting sun

  Amongst those rosy clouds beyond the foam,

  We dreamed that we could see the shores of home.

  The Israelites, in wondering surprise,

  Saw the sweet peace of Canaan’s fertile parts;

  Our land was hidden from our longing eyes,

  Yet it was clear and living in our hearts.

  Oh England, island home, fair as a star

  How near you seemed that day—and yet how far!

  When Israel escaped from Pharaoh’s might

  The Red Sea lay before them, in the wind,

  And Pharaoh’s chariots, spoiling for the fight,

  Came rolling up behind.

  God wrought great things for Israel that day.

  He plucked them safely from the tyrants’ hands

  The sea rolled back and left a narrow way

  And Israel went dryshod to happier lands.

  Did others think as I? Did other men

  Long for that wonder to be wrought again?

  Oh that these waters, bounding with the breeze,

  Could suddenly divide

  And leave a narrow path between the seas

  With towering walls of foam on either side,

  So we (like Israelites in days of yore)

  Might gain a happier shore!

  A miracle there was, but not as I had prayed,

  God stretched His hand and “Peace be still” He said.

  And lo, this channel ’twixt unquiet seas,

  Fretted by tides that never rest nor sleep,

  Excited by the winds, stirred by the breeze,

  Plagued by the currents’ sweep;

  This restless water hemmed by rocky land

  Lies still beneath the shadow of His hand.

  Calm lie the waters now, the winds have died;

  No wave, no swell, no undertow is here.

  Calm lie the waters and the ebbing tide

  Laps gently as a sheltered English mere.

  And now from England’s shore our brothers come

  To bring us safely home.

  Amidst a storm of fire—a very hell—

  Comes yacht and ferry-boat and collier barge,

  Come sloop and ketch and dancing cockleshell

  Comes little boat—and large.

  A double miracle to set us free—

  Lion-hearted men, calm sea.

  FRIDAY 16TH AUGUST

  Pinkie bounds into my room before breakfast and says that she heard the butcher’s boy telling Annie that we got a hundred and sixty-nine German aeroplanes yesterday, and isn’t it simply splendid. I agree that it is marvellous, but add that I cannot help thinking about the German airmen’s mothers.

  Pinkie says, “But you mustn’t think of them, darling. We’ve got beyond that. It’s a case of them or us.”

  I realise that Pinkie is right. There is no room for sentiment now.

  The post is late in arriving, and after breakfast, when I am sitting in the drawing room adding up accounts (and wondering somewhat sadly why it is that large sums of money seem to melt away so quickly in a lot of small sums), Pinkie comes in with a letter in her hand. “It’s from Aunt Elinor,” she says. “Aunt Elinor wants me to go home.” (Her expression is lugubrious in the extreme.) “And it isn’t the first letter,” says Pinkie. “I mean she’s been writing and writing, but I took no notice because I didn’t want to go, and now—for some reason or other—she seems to be a bit fed-up. Isn’t it silly of her?”

  “But Pinkie . . .”

  “Of course I’ve been here for ages,” continues Pinkie. “You asked me to come for a few days and I’ve stayed for months—Aunt Elinor says it’s awful of me. She doesn’t know what I’m thinking of . . . she says I’m to go home tomorrow.”

  I look at Pinkie, and Pinkie looks at me. Pinkie says, “It’s for you to decide, Hester darling. It’s like this, you see, if you want me to go, I’ll go, but if you want me to stay, a thousand wild horses won’t drag me away—that’s all, really.”

  The situation might have been delicate, but it isn’t, for Pinkie is so frank and straightforward and sensible that we can thrash out the matter quite comfortably. I explain that I don’t want her to go at all, and that if she goes I shall miss her horribly, but perhaps she ought to go back to Aunt Elinor. Pinkie owes a good deal to Elinor Bradshaw, and must remember that . . . so if Aunt Elinor wants her . . .

  “But she doesn’t,” declares Pinkie with conviction. “She never wants me. I’m no use to her at all. She treats me as if I were seven years old, and never tells me anything . . . why, you treat Betty much more reasonably than Aunt Elinor treats me.”

  This is amazing, of course, because Pinkie is a whole person, and an extremely interesting and amusing companion.

  “It’s true,” says Pinkie—quite unnecessarily, for I know her too well to doubt her word.

  “Then why?” I enquire, in a somewhat puzzled manner.

  “Oh, because she thinks I’m a nuisance,” says Pinkie frankly. “I’m a nuisance to her, so she thinks I’m a nuisance to you. She explains all that quite clearly in her letter. Am I a nuisance, Hester? You had better say quite honestly.”

  Far from being a nuisance, Pinkie is the greatest comfort to me, and I tell her so in no uncertain terms.

  “I knew it,” says Pinkie, hugging me so tightly that I am nearly throttled. “I knew it all the time, only I had to ask you, hadn’t I? . . . I should know at once if I was a nuisance to you . . . anybody would know, wouldn’t they?”

  “Almost anybody would,” I reply in a strangled voice.

  “Almost anybody,” agrees Pinkie. “And anybody like me (who had been brought up by people who didn’t like them much and only had them in the house because they hadn’t got a mother, and their father was in India, and they had nowhere else to go) would be one of the very first to know they were being a nuisance.”

  “Oh Pinkie!” I exclaim in distress.

  She hugs me again, “It’s all right,” she says. “I’m not moaning about it . . . I hate people who moan, don’t you? And as a matter of fact, it’s only since I have come here and . . . and been with you . . . that I realise what it was like before . . . It’s so lovely to be wanted,” says Pinkie, earnestly.

  Her face is very close to mine, her skin with its fair fine texture, the hair which springs from her forehead like living gold.
I put my cheek against hers and say, “I want you awfully badly, Pinkie.”

  “We want each other,” Pinkie says, “so it’s simply perfect.” She gives me another hug, and then rises and shakes herself into a more sensible frame of mind. “So that’s settled,” says Pinkie, “and I can go and write to Aunt Elinor this very minute and tell her that I’m not coming.”

  I implore her to be tactful, and she promises that she will be, and goes upon her way rejoicing.

  SATURDAY 17TH AUGUST

  It is nearly midnight, and everyone else has gone to bed, but I am still sitting by the open window in the drawing room. This has been one of my bad days, I have carried a load of misery upon my shoulders since early morning, and nothing I could do would lessen it—how curious that some days should be so much worse than others! Hope is like a fitful flame that springs up and flickers and wanes without visible cause.

  How quiet it is! The moon is shining so brightly that there are no stars to be seen. I have the feeling that everyone in the world is asleep—but I know that it is not so. All over Europe there are people—men and women—keeping watch. There are aeroplanes, laden with death, speeding across the sky; there are sailors on the lookout; there are thousands of women like me who cannot sleep because their hearts are torn with anxiety . . . all over Europe the shadow of suffering lies.

  I sit and think about it, and in some strange way it is a relief to give way to misery. It does nobody any harm, for there is nobody to see. Just for a few moments I can take off the mask of cheerfulness. Just for a few moments I can allow myself to think. Despair rolls over me like a breaking wave . . . despair, not only for myself, but for us all . . . and the tears which wet my cheeks are for all wives and mothers . . .

  Suddenly I am startled by a loud knocking which resounds through the silent house and, realising that it is someone knocking on the front door, I rise and go through the hall to open it and see who is there; but when I reach the door I pause with my hand on the key. Is it wise to open the door at this hour of night without knowing who is outside? I am hesitating and trying to decide what to do when another volley of knocks makes me jump and sets my heart racing . . . the knocking is so peremptory that the stout oak door rattles and groans upon its hinges.

  “Who’s there?” I enquire as firmly as I am able.

  A voice says, “Hester, is that you? For goodness’ sake open the door . . . I’ve been ringing the bell and knocking for ages . . . I thought you were all dead.”

  It is Tim’s voice—there is no doubt about that—it is Tim . . . my hands tremble so that I can scarcely undo the bolts, but at last the bolts are undone and the key turned and the door flies open.

  “Tim!” I cry, as I fling myself into his arms.

  “Hester!” cries Tim, almost squeezing me to death.

  “Tim!”

  “Hester!”

  “Tim!”

  We keep on saying “Hester” and “Tim” for several minutes in the most idiotic manner. I have to feel him all over with my hands to convince myself that he is real and whole; and, when the door is shut and the light turned on, I still have the uncomfortable sensation that I may be dreaming, for he looks so unlike himself, and so different from what I expected. His hair is long—much longer than I have ever seen it—and his military moustache is gone, and instead of being clad in Service Kit, or battle dress (garments in which an officer re-turned from the field of battle might reasonably be expected to appear), Tim is arrayed in a pair of baggy blue serge trousers and a navy blue jersey with a high neck. He sees my surprise and laughs—“But it is really me,” he says.

  “I know,” I cry, hugging him. “I know it’s you . . . only I’m so afraid that I’m dreaming.”

  “You’ve been worrying,” he says. “I couldn’t let you know I was safe—it must have been pretty beastly for you.”

  I assure him that it was, and add that if it had not been for Tubby I should have gone quite mad.

  “Tubby been holding your hand?” enquires Tim, smiling.

  “Not exactly. He told me what you had said—that you had been detailed for a special job.”

  Tim looks at me in surprise. “What?” he enquires, “Tubby said what?”

  I repeat the conversation between Tubby and myself (it made such a deep impression upon me that I find no difficulty in repeating it practically word for word), and Tim listens and nods and says, “Yes, I remember that little village,” and, “Oh yes, Tubby was all right . . . very good value Tubby was,” and, “Yes, it was a bit of a job hustling the Jocks along,” but when I come to the end of my story, Tim looks at me in blank amazement and exclaims, “Great Scott, did I say that? I suppose I must have said it . . . Tubby couldn’t have dreamt it, because we never got any sleep.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask him.

  “I suppose I said it,” repeats Tim. “As a matter of fact I’m beginning to have a faint recollection . . . but I didn’t mean anything at all. It was just nonsense.”

  “It was just nonsense!”

  “Absolute nonsense . . .” declares Tim. “You see I talked so much. All through the retreat when we were marching here and marching there I just went on talking and talking and walking and walking. I talked to everybody, and I talked all the time, and said any nonsense or rubbish that came into my head. It kept people cheery, you see.”

  I find myself gazing at Tim with eyes like saucers . . . it was just nonsense . . . it had meant nothing . . . but it had kept me sane for weeks.

  “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” exclaims Tim. “Of course I meant to come back with the others. You don’t catch me staying in France a day longer than I need. I never want to see the place again—neither in war nor peace.”

  By this time Tim is seated at the kitchen table, and is busy demolishing the remains of a cold chicken, and I am making cocoa on the gas ring . . . “the adventures I’ve had!” he continues, “the crazy hare-brained adventures! You wouldn’t believe half of them, Hester. They would sound like a story out of one of those frightful tuppenny papers that Bryan loves. I was hiding in a barn one day and a German Officer came in—it was him or me, and I felt that it ought to be him,—I socked him on the head pretty hard—it was enough to keep him quiet for some time—and I covered him up with hay and left him there . . . but that was afterwards, of course.”

  “After what?” I ask.

  “After a lot of things,” Tim replies. “After I’d left the old woman’s house and was trying to make my way to the coast. It was the old woman who gave me these clothes—marvellous, aren’t they? They belonged to her son, and it was lucky for me she had kept them because she had burnt my clothes and I hadn’t a rag to wear . . .”

  “She burnt your clothes!” I exclaim, pausing in my stirring of the cocoa to stare at Tim.

  “Look out, it’s boiling over!” says Tim. “Yes, she had to burn them—it was safer. If the Boche had found them it wouldn’t have been too good. She was a decent old thing—I wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been for her—she had only one tooth in her head and it was as yellow as a guinea.”

  I am feeling quite dazed now. “Where would you be?” I enquire.

  Tim says, “Oh, if it hadn’t been for her I should be languishing in a German Prison Camp—at least, I expect so. But I’m telling you this all wrong . . . this cocoa is dashed good, have some yourself.”

  I pour out some for myself—just to please him, for I am neither hungry nor thirsty. “Go on,” I urge him. “Tell me how you were taken prisoner—tell me everything.”

  “It would take all night,” he replies. “Tell me about everyone first—Betty, Bryan, how are they? Where are they? What are they doing? Tell me how things are on the Home Front. Are you getting plenty of food? Are you getting bombed? I haven’t heard any proper news for weeks.”

  I tell him all he wants to know in a few words, for there is not much to tell, and then I enquire further into his—far more than interesting—history. “Do tell me,” I implore him. “Do tell m
e what happened . . . How were you taken prisoner? . . . unless you’re tired and would rather go to bed.”

  Tim says he isn’t tired. “I’d like to tell you, but it’s all such a muddle,” he declares, “and especially the last week or ten days, when I was wandering about sleeping in barns and behind hedges and trying to find some way of getting home. The difficulty was to know whom you could trust—some of the villagers were very bitter against us, and others were willing to do what they could as long as they didn’t get into trouble. I got food from them sometimes, and one man gave me a bed in his cottage for the night . . . then there was another man who betrayed me, and I had to make a dash for it. After that I was pretty careful and hid in the woods . . . but that wasn’t getting me any nearer home. I was almost in despair when I happened to run across a Belgian fisherman who was going out to have a look at his lines . . . but that’s the end of the story,” says Tim, pulling himself up with a jerk. “I must begin at the beginning. The story really begins with my knee.”

  “Your knee?”

  “Yes, you know that loose cartilage of mine that always chooses the most inopportune moments to come adrift? Well, it broke all previous records—it surpassed itself—by coming adrift when its owner was taking part in a retreat.”

  “Tim!”

  “I know,” agrees Tim. “It was a pretty nasty moment when I felt it go. We had spent a few hours in a village, and I had just watched the Battalion march out.”

  “But wasn’t there anyone with you?”

  “Not a soul,” replies Tim, helping himself to a week’s supply of butter and spreading it with a lavish hand on to a thick slice of brown bread. “Not a single solitary soul. I was always about the last person to leave a village, because I made it my business to have a snoop round and see that nobody had been left behind. On this occasion nobody had been left behind—which was unlucky for me. I was hurrying down the village street when I put my foot on a loose stone and the beastly cartilage went click, and down I went like a shot rabbit—you know the way I do. It was a nice thing to happen, wasn’t it? I tried to get my leg straightened but I couldn’t—it was extremely painful—sickeningly painful. I was still wrestling with my leg when a tank came lumbering down the street—a German tank. I had known there were some in the vicinity, but I hadn’t known that they were quite so near. I couldn’t do anything, of course, there was nothing I could do except surrender. . . . The tank stopped and an officer got out and came and looked at me, and asked what was the matter with me in perfectly good English, so I told him what had happened. He said, ‘I too, have a loose cartilage.’ It was damn funny really; I thought so at the time, and I’ve often thought so since . . . there we were—two deadly enemies who would shoot each other without the slightest hesitation—comparing notes about loose cartilages. He asked me whether it was the outer or the inner cartilage—his was the inner, and it gave him a lot of trouble. I said that mine was the inner too, and added that it always seemed to choose the most awkward moments to let me down. He nodded and said he could well believe it. I said this was the most awkward moment so far. He appreciated that . . . ‘You are my prisoner,’ he said. I replied that I had suspected as much from the beginning . . . he had disarmed me, of course.