The Great Escape

by Megan Rix

  While Rose finished the tail of her fish-feast and Buster stopped running and barking and lay down on the ground and whined in disappointed misery, Tiger waited. Although, like all housecats, he had the ability to swim, he didn’t like to get wet. He’d decided his dinner could come to him. He didn’t have to wait long for a smaller fish to swim past his waiting-place. Tiger batted at the fish with his paw. The dazed fish tried to swim on, but it was too late. Tiger pulled it on to the side and started eating while the fish was still flapping.

  Buster, seeing Rose and now Tiger eating fish, raced into the lake and swam for the first time in his life, doggy-paddling in circles. When it came to fish, he didn’t yet have the hunting skills that the other two had. But his hunger was just as well satisfied by the rat that peered inquisitively at the small, splashing dog, only to find itself clamped in the jaws of a jubilant Buster.

  No sooner had Buster finished eating the rat than two swans came gliding towards him. None of the three animals had seen swans before. Rose and Tiger were instinctively wary. Tiger tried to look bigger and more intimidating by arching his back, and Rose’s hackles went up. But Buster had no fear of the territorial swans and barked excitedly, jumping into the water to greet them.

  The swans hissed and headed purposefully towards the small dog.

  Rose barked a warning to Buster and when Buster didn’t respond quickly enough she barked again, more urgently. Buster clambered out of the water just in time and shook himself at the water’s edge before running off after the other two.

  The pets emerged from Regent’s Park alongside the gates of London Zoo, ignorant of the fact that the animals that lived there were today being transported to the rural safety of Whipsnade Zoo. Buster ran straight into the path of an elephant being led along by its keeper. He’d never encountered such a large animal, and cowered away from it in shock.

  A junior zookeeper with a shock of red hair came running over to the man with the elephant.

  ‘What about the snakes in the reptile house? They’re still there – no one’s moved them. And the spiders and scorpions have been forgotten.’

  ‘They’re not coming with us,’ the older man told him.

  ‘But …’

  ‘They’ll be chloroformed. They’d be too great a threat if the Germans got their hands on them.’

  ‘But they can’t just … that’s not right!’

  ‘This is war, boy.’

  The elephant gave a final hurrah as it left.

  The animals moved on, navigating their way by pure good luck across the busier roads and down past Buckingham Palace. The pets didn’t notice the Union Jack flapping high up on the flag-pole, but it signalled to all who saw it that the king and queen were at home and refusing to be evacuated.

  Even as people started to move about the busy city, the streets were much less populated than they would normally have been at the weekend. No one had the time to be a tourist any more. And no one had the time to pay attention to three stray animals.

  Down in Devon Robert and Charlie were woken by the sound of a cockerel crowing.

  ‘What’s that?’ Charlie said, his eyes wide with fear. He’d never heard anything like it before.

  ‘It’s just a cockerel,’ Robert replied sleepily.

  ‘What’s a cock-le?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Cock-er-el – it’s a male chicken.’

  Charlie frowned. ‘Chickens make clucking sounds.’

  Robert threw off his covers. ‘Come on, I’ll show you,’ he said, and the two boys went out into the farmyard in their pyjamas.

  Charlie was very impressed with the cockerel. ‘He’s so noisy!’ he said. Then he thought for a bit. ‘Sometimes my mum says I’m too noisy. You don’t …’ He looked at Robert for reassurance. He was suddenly on the edge of tears. ‘You don’t think she sent me away because I was too noisy?’

  ‘No,’ Robert told him. ‘It was because Hitler might be invading and there could be bombs and she didn’t want you to get hurt.’

  Back inside the thatched cottage, Lucy missed the usual comforting morning purr of Tiger when she woke up.

  He’d always been there in her bed beside her for as long as she could remember. She threw back the covers, padded over to her suitcase and pulled out the drawing pad and pencils she’d brought with her as the single ‘toy’ evacuees were allowed. She began to draw and didn’t stop until Mrs Foster called out, ‘Breakfast’s ready!’

  She raced down the stairs as Robert and Charlie came back inside. Mrs Foster had made a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, sausages and fried bread.

  ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she said.

  ‘I’m always hungry,’ Charlie told her, as he tucked in.

  After breakfast Michael headed down the streets to Robert’s house. The net curtains of number 9, the Harrises’ house, twitched as he passed.

  The more he thought about it, the more it seemed a real possibility that the animals might have gone back to the Edwardses’ house. But when he got there he found the house securely locked up. He peered in through the windows, but could see nothing. He went down the alleyway and climbed over the fence into the back garden.

  No pets came to greet him as he’d hoped they would. He tried calling them anyway: ‘Buster, Rose … Tiger?’

  The pets didn’t come running. Michael sighed. Then he remembered the Anderson Shelter and headed over to it, walking past the slipper that Buster and Rose had played with the evening before, without realizing what it was.

  None of the animals were inside the Anderson Shelter, although he could see the soil had been freshly scratched to make a sleeping patch. He crouched down to take a closer look. The patch didn’t mean that Tiger had slept there. It was just as likely to have been a stray. But as he looked more closely he saw that there was something on the ground, partly embedded in the soil. He picked it up and it made a sound. There was no mistaking it. It was the bell from Tiger’s collar.

  Maybe Tiger had slept here before the Edwardses left for Devon, or maybe he had come back to the house since. Michael knew that cats often returned to their old homes and it wasn’t far from number 9 to number 15.

  He took it outside to have a better look. The bell still looked shiny. If Tiger had lost it some time ago, it would have turned dull. Michael waited, but Tiger didn’t return, and finally he gave up and headed home, taking the bell with him.

  Number 9’s curtains twitched again as he passed.

  Inside, Mrs Harris whispered to her husband. ‘He’s coming back.’

  ‘He’s not coming here, is he?’ said Mr Harris.

  Mrs Harris gave him a look. He still hadn’t told her what he’d done with the animals and he seemed to have no intention of doing so.

  ‘No, gone past,’ she said.

  ‘Interfering NARPAC busybodies. The government has given people like him far too much power. Intimidating innocent folks like us,’ Mr Harris complained, and went back to his boiled egg and tea.

  Mrs Harris resisted saying that she didn’t think her husband had ever been the innocent victim he sometimes liked to portray himself as. In fact, she couldn’t even imagine him being innocent when he was a baby. He’d probably had a rattle-robbing trade going on. But she didn’t say anything. It was generally wise not to say too much when Harry was around.

  At Trafalgar Square the animals stopped, not far from the four magnificent bronze lions that guarded the foot of Nelson’s column. But it wasn’t the statues that made first Tiger and then Buster and finally Rose stop. It was the pigeons, which to Tiger meant one thing – food. He tried to sneak up on them before pouncing on his chosen victim. But Buster had never seen so many birds in one place before. He was overcome with excitement and raced at the pigeons, barking wildly. The pigeons did what pigeons do and flew off – but not too far – before settling down again. The Trafalgar Square pigeons were used to being chased and scattered by
the tourists that came to see them. They’d had countless children charging through their number and they weren’t fazed by one small dog.

  Rose’s herding instinct came to the fore and before she knew it she was racing after the birds too.

  Tiger, all too aware that making a commotion was not the way to get a meal, crouched low and waited. In just a few seconds his patience was rewarded. A pigeon, avoiding the yapping Buster and the herding Rose, fluttered down without realizing Tiger was there until it was too late.

  Buster and Rose stopped running after the birds and watched Tiger eating. They were hungry too. The pigeon was large and Tiger could not eat it all. He nudged what was left over to Buster and Rose and then scrupulously washed his face and paws as he watched the dogs tear at the carcass. But it wasn’t enough; however, the pigeons soon came back. Buster and Rose chased after them again and a second pigeon was caught and devoured.

  Finally full, the animals’ attention now turned to quenching their thirst and they had a long cool drink from the fountain. The day had turned warm and Rose cooled her tired paws in the water.

  Then the animals slept for a while in the shade of the stone lions and woke to the sight of an elephantine grey barrage balloon floating above them. Buster had never seen a moving thing so large and ran and hid under a bench. Rose, used to animals larger than herself and less readily intimidated, watched warily till it was out of sight. Tiger licked his paws.

  It was twilight by the time they crossed the cobblestones of Covent Garden and ventured into the backstreets beyond. Soon there was a new and enticing smell just ahead of them. The smell of meat from the market at Smithfield. The market wasn’t open on Sundays, but there was still meat waste to scavenge, and Tiger added a mouse or two to his own supper.

  They might have chosen to spend the night there, but a security guard spotted them and threw a bucket of water over them.

  ‘Get lost before I skin the lot of you!’

  Drenched, but with their stomachs full, the animals pressed on.

  When Mr Foster took Robert and Lucy to see their grandmother, the old lady seemed to have no recollection of refusing to open the door to Robert the evening before or indeed of shouting at him to go away.

  ‘Robert and dear Lucy,’ she cried with delight when she saw them. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Are you on holiday? Where’s your mother?’

  Mr Foster smiled ruefully at Robert. On the way back last night he’d told Robert that it might be better if he and his sister and Charlie stayed with them for the time being – even if Beatrice said they could stay with her.

  ‘Your grandmother … well, she hasn’t been finding it easy to cope recently. One day she seems fine and the next day she’s not so good.’

  Robert quickly worked out that Mr Foster had clearly been underplaying whatever it was that was wrong with his gran. ‘We’re staying with Mr and Mrs Foster,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  Lucy gave Robert a look. He knew she wanted to stay with their grandmother and in lots of ways so did he; they hardly knew the Fosters, after all. But it seemed wiser to stay where they were, at least for the moment.

  ‘Yes – but we’ll be coming over to see you every day,’ Robert said.

  ‘See you tomorrow then,’ Gran said, and got busy with the hole she was digging.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Lucy asked her.

  ‘Never you mind,’ Beatrice said, and carried on digging.

  Robert shook his head at Lucy and gestured that it was time to leave. ‘See you tomorrow, Gran,’ he said.

  Beatrice kept on digging.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Lucy asked her brother on the way back to the Fosters’.

  Mr Foster overheard her. ‘It’s the war,’ he said. ‘For people who lived through and lost people they loved in the last war it’s too much to accept that now we’re in another one.’ He knew Beatrice wasn’t the only one to be affected in this way, not by a long shot, and who could blame her really? A person could only take so much.

  It was nightfall and the animals’ energy was now all but exhausted from the long day. Dogged determination and the need to find somewhere safe and dry to sleep kept them moving forward.

  They’d only just dried off from their market drenching when a violent storm soaked them all over again. The day that had started with so much promise was now turning into a night of despair. Heads down, they padded on through the relentless rain and strong wind. They crossed London Bridge, barely aware of the dark water of the River Thames flowing below them or of the floating hospital ship that glided past.

  The young man on the bridge stared down into the water and paid no attention to the three sodden pets that passed him. Private Matthews couldn’t face being in the war. He knew that at some point he’d be expected to shoot a Jerry or be shot by one – and he couldn’t. Nor did he see how anyone else could do it. How could one person take the life of another person who’d done him no harm?

  But he was the only one he knew who felt that way and he was jeered at when he tried to speak up – so he’d shut up. One of his workmates had even muttered the word ‘coward’ – and perhaps he was. All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t go to war. He just couldn’t.

  The cold water seemed so inviting, comforting even, that he found himself drawn towards it and the light … falling, falling.

  The icy coldness of the Thames hit his body with a punch of reality. His arms flailed in the water and he swallowed mouthfuls of the filthy stuff.

  Just seconds later Mrs Edwards, working on the floating hospital ship she’d been assigned to, threw the life-ring to the figure in the water. Two of her volunteer nurses raced on deck behind her, hardly able to believe that they had really seen what they thought they’d seen.

  ‘Grab hold of that!’ a voice yelled, as the life-ring was thrown. And suddenly Private Matthews knew that he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die at all, not now, not like this.

  Private Matthews grabbed hold of the life-ring like a drowning man, which is really what he was, and the ring was pulled hand over fist to the hospital ship. He was pulled on board and wrapped in a blanket.

  ‘Lucky we came along when we did,’ said a motherly-looking nurse with a kind face. ‘Otherwise who knows what injury you might have suffered from your … fall.’

  Private Matthews shivered inside the blanket. Attempted suicide was a crime. He could go to jail or at the very least be fined for it. A volunteer handed him a cup of hot chocolate, which he sipped gratefully, the hot liquid warming him from the inside out.

  ‘Bridges can get very slippery in the rain,’ added the nurse, with a kind but knowing look.

  Indeed.

  The matron came forward with a thermometer. ‘Open wide,’ she said.

  ‘Where am I?’ Private Matthews mumbled with the instrument stuck in his mouth.

  ‘Floating hospital,’ said Mrs Edwards. ‘Not many of these about yet.’

  ‘It’s like a ship of angels,’ Private Matthews said, and the volunteer nurses grinned.

  ‘We aim to please,’ one of them laughed.

  ‘Well, you should be thanking someone that Nurse Edwards here saw you fall,’ said the matron, removing the thermometer and checking the reading. ‘Not many people take a swim in the Thames and survive.’

  Private Matthews looked around at the nurses. Without them … well, he didn’t like to think what would’ve happened.

  He was their first patient, they told him as he climbed into the hospital bed.

  ‘Although we expect to end up with lots more if Mr Hitler has his way.’

  Private Matthews closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the boat’s motor. It was the first time in over a week that he’d really slept, and there were no nightmares that night.

  Chapter 9

  After crossing London Bridge, Buster, Rose and Tiger entered South Lond
on and wound their way down dark, deserted streets, looking but not finding anywhere to stop and sleep. Occasionally they met another cat on a night-time prowl. One ginger tom snarled at Tiger, daring him to fight, but when Tiger responded in kind he turned tail and ran away.

  A warehouse yard seemed the perfect sleeping place, but a guard-dog barked at them and bared its teeth, so they moved on. They stopped to shelter in a graveyard, only to have a homeless man throw an empty bottle at them, so they moved on again.

  Eventually, they stumbled upon some railway tracks and followed them as if they were a trail of breadcrumbs, too tired to decide on their own direction. But they were soaked through from the storm, shivering and exhausted. Their paws were cut and sore and they needed to find somewhere dry to sleep, and fast.

  At Ladywell they found an empty train carriage and crept inside it. Tiger had enough energy left to jump into the net overhead luggage rack. Buster and Rose lay on the floor near to the window, neither choosing to lie on the more comfortable bench seats that were available.

  When a whistle and a shunt woke them the next morning it was with a shock. Rose was immediately awake, but stayed very still. Tiger struggled to get his paw out of the rope holes of the luggage rack and decided to give up and stay where he was. Buster ran to the door, wagging his tail.

  The carriage door had been open when they’d crept in last night. Now it was closed. When the door opened, Buster backed away, but couldn’t quite manage to hide in time. Rose tensed and a growl rumbled in her throat.

  ‘Hello, old chap,’ said a friendly voice, seeing Buster sitting before him. A young airman wearing a brand-new uniform came in and closed the door behind him. His eyes widened when he saw Rose there as well, and widened even more as he went to put his hand luggage on the rack and spotted Tiger.

  Tiger miaowed and Officer Cadet Joe Lawson realized the luggage rack, which had made a comfortable bed to start with, was now behaving like a cat trap instead. He freed Tiger’s paw and the cat immediately jumped out and down on to the comfortable bench seat to greet his rescuer.