The Chestnut Tree

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aren’t you going back there, then, Mr Kinnersley?’

  ‘I most certainly am, but not before I’ve had a pint at the Three Tuns.’

  David walked off in the direction of the pub, lighting a cigarette and whistling at the same time, something which Rusty suddenly knew she wanted to emulate.

  ‘Here, you going back too?’

  Rusty nodded absently, still watching David.

  ‘Can I come and all?’

  Rusty shook her head. ‘Can you imagine what Mum would say?’

  ‘She knows you’ve gone.’

  Rusty stared into her youngest brother’s bright blue eyes. ‘She does?’

  ‘Yes, she sat down sudden when I was having my dinner, and said “Rusty’s gone with the rest, hasn’t she, Mickey?”’

  Rusty nodded. That would be Mum all right. She always knew when things were happening to her family, even when she could not see them. It was just the way she was. Dad always said that she was half mermaid half woman, and that he had only married her because she sat combing her long hair on a rock and playing music that dimmed his senses.

  ‘But you haven’t seen me, you understand? I don’t want Mum coming down here, see?’ Rusty eased her way round the blind side of the boxes, completely out of sight. ‘Now go home, Mickey, there’s a good lad, and help Mum, or something. Go on.’

  Mickey looked at her, his heart in his eyes, longing to stay, but knowing that Rusty would never take him back with her and Mr Kinnersley on Light Heart. Not in a million years. She just never would.

  He ran home as fast as he could. He could not wait to tell his mum about what had happened, about all the soldiers coming off of the boats, and the blood, and Mr Kinnersley, and everything. But when he got in his mum was gone, and he sat and ate his milk and biscuits quite alone while all the time making a plan for an adventure of his own – some way that he could prove he was as brave as the rest of his family, something he could do that would make him a hero in everyone’s eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  In the event Meggie did not join the Wrens as she had promised herself she was going to do, once Madame Gran and Richards, not to mention a newly arrived Judy, had settled into Cucklington House, on the outskirts of Bexham. Instead she joined the WVS, and persuaded Judy to do the same.

  ‘WVS – it stands for widows, virgins and spinsters, Judy. Which one are you?’

  Seeing the colour that Judy turned at her question, a colour that exactly matched her brand new WVS pullover, Meggie turned away, laughing.

  ‘Oh, touché, Miss Melton! Life catches up with all of us.’

  ‘Walter is home on leave soon, and I am so hoping against hope that we – you know.’

  ‘I know, you and Walter are going to marry, in fact I am sure of it, and up the aisle you will go in Madame Gran’s old white dress, and I will wear a Parma violet toque on my shining head of hair, and cry and cry and cry, which is just how it should be.’

  ‘Oh, bother the white dress!’ Judy stared out of the window towards the harbour. ‘What do dresses matter when we all have so much to do?’

  Meggie lit a cigarette and smoked it in silence, before pulling on her red felt hat and staring at herself in the mirror to study the effect of the grey-green uniform and matching red jumper, all so carefully designed by Digby Morton for the WVS to look beautifully chic.

  ‘How is your mother taking your still being in love with Walter and all that, Judy?’

  ‘My mother?’

  ‘Yes, duckie, Lady Melton, remember? Your mother?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, actually. As you know, I have hardly seen her since we got back from Scotland, but I had the impression that being so isolated up there for so long, I think that pulled her up a bit. I think during that long and dreary winter she came to realise that there were things in life, in war in particular, which were really rather more important than whether or not Walter and I choose to get engaged. And since my father has decided it matters less whom I marry than that we win the war, the whole subject seems to have been put to bed.’

  ‘In the event, rather an appropriate expression, that . . .’

  They both started to laugh.

  ‘Actually, at this moment, my mother is in Weymouth helping to organise the evacuees from the Channel Islands. My father will be lucky to see her for the duration. The old boy is having a rare old time in the Local Defence Volunteers with all the other fuddy duddies, or fuddy daddies. Fire watching, digging trenches, putting up booby traps in the woods, and keeping his eyes peeled for parachuting Nazis dressed as nunny wunnies arriving from the skies. Not bad considering his age. Actually, I think the LDV has really given all the older men a new lease of life. You should see them marching – soon you won’t be able to tell them from crack infantry. Marvellous really. Mind you, meeting my father and his friends on a dark night would be enough to scare most Nazis to death. And I mean it. Talk about no quarter given. Firearms, the lot – he’s becoming a crack shot, too. Given up drinking spirits, in case they affect his aim, and since his eyesight is still perfect the Nazi house-painter had better watch out.’

  Having satisfied herself that her felt hat was now moulded into the perfect shape for her face, Meggie turned to Judy.

  ‘Right, Miss Melton, off we go, to do our duty for God and the king.’

  The two young women about-turned in mock imitation of a march and left the bedroom.

  Downstairs Elinor Gore-Stewart and Richards were sorting clothes for the village evacuees. Jumpers in one pile, skirts in another, trousers in yet another, all now returned immaculately darned from the various knitting and sewing circles around Bexham, and ready to go off to the collecting points being organised by the WVS.

  ‘We’re having a knitting circle in the dining room, a sewing circle in the drawing room, and making cocktails in the cellar,’ Richards told Meggie with more than a hint of pride in his voice.

  ‘I know your mixes tend to be lethal, Richards, but not so lethal you have to mix them in the cellar, surely?’

  ‘Madame Gran’s mix, not mine, Miss Meggie – Molotov cocktails, for throwing at German tanks.’

  For a second both young women turned back and stared at Richards, lost in admiration for Mrs Gore-Stewart and her butler, before making off towards the garage and their next destination – the coast, and the new arrivals from France.

  ‘Chummy’s not going to be much use soon, once the petrol rationing worsens, so let’s enjoy her while we can.’ Judy patted her little car on its bonnet before getting into the driving seat.

  Nothing could prepare them not just for the sight of the troops returning from Dunkirk, but for the look of them; not the blood and bandages, but their air of utter disbelief, the mortal wound of defeat seeming not to have left even the heartiest of them unscarred. Since they had elected not just to feed and comfort the young men, but to accompany the worst of the wounded back to London on the train, Judy and Meggie found it difficult not to be affected by the sight of schoolchildren, parents and teachers running up the grass embankments to the small country stations, to the halts, to everywhere they knew the trains might or would stop, however temporarily, to bring food and refreshments to the dirty, dispirited, and wounded troops.

  ‘I lost my brother somewhere back there,’ a pathetically young, horribly wounded corporal suddenly told Judy, bursting into tears.

  ‘You can’t think about that now, son,’ one of the older occupants of the carriage remarked, ‘not any more. None of us can. All of us is going to lose someone. That don’t matter, same as Churchill keeps telling us, not compared to what we got to do. Victory, that’s what matters. We’re the only ones left waiting to punch Hitler in his Nazi face. Only us and the Empire, but punch him we will. Just you see.’

  Light Heart was outward bound once again, and near to completing the less than thirty miles to France. In the distance bombs were exploding along the beach and among the lines of soldiers wading out to sea. It flashed th
rough Rusty’s mind that being brave once was one thing, but being brave twice was quite another. Looking ahead, she no longer felt even faintly courageous, in fact she felt appalled at her own cowardice.

  ‘How far in are you going to try and get this time?’ she called out to David Kinnersley.

  ‘As far as I dare!’

  The lines of wading soldiers formed slowly advancing semicircles in the shallow waters, almost perfectly formed where they began, but disinte-grating into ragged disorder the further the troops got out to sea. From where Light Heart was now positioned it seemed to Rusty that everything was moving in slow motion. Even the shell and bomb bursts seemed to have no real appearance of reality, happening as they did before the sound of their explosion was carried out to the flotilla of rescue ships waiting bravely, patiently, at last holding out hope to the waders.

  But as David eased Light Heart in across the shallow waters the conflict became hideous. Rusty could hear the shouts for help from the men they were all bent on trying to rescue, and, far worse than that, the screams and cries of their wounded companions seemed to have welded into one hideous, long drawn out wail that appeared to come from the bowels of human despair. All around, now, she saw that this time there were not just patches of red, but the whole sea had turned to a dull brownish scarlet as the dead, some limbless, some whole, floated past the boat. On the beach and in the shallows men were being shattered by shells, bombs and gunfire from the German fighter planes, ending their lives in the very sea in which, perhaps only a few months earlier, they might have been enjoying themselves on holiday with their families. Caps and berets, long parted from their owners, floated past the boat, as did waterlogged wallets, letters from home, postcards from sweethearts, mementoes of young lives now nothing but macabre confetti on the sea of blood.

  It was too real for Rusty to be able to summon up the strength either to scream or to be sick, but she found herself momentarily closing her eyes before turning to hurry to the opposite side of the boat where the sea had erupted around a line of panic-stricken soldiers who had suddenly turned their joint attentions to climbing on board. This time too there was no burly unshaven soldier to come to Rusty’s rescue, just herself and her skipper trying to control the gang of men pulling themselves up from the sea and on to the deck. They tried to shout warnings, aware the boat could only carry so many, but their admonitions were either lost in the noise or simply ignored. Already overloaded by a good third more than the number they could safely carry, David yelled at Rusty to turn about and go full steam ahead for one of the waiting naval frigates that lay out well beyond the shallows, but before Rusty could swing the yacht round another ten men had clambered and fought their way aboard.

  ‘There’s too many of you! We’ll sink!’ David bellowed at them. ‘Just wait, we’ll come back for you.’

  So overladen was Light Heart that the sea was already lapping over her sides. To add to their plight Rusty could now see that an enemy fighter had swung about just beyond them and was heading back, already beginning what promised to be a lethal dive.

  ‘Get down, everybody!’ she yelled, pushing those nearest her as hard as she could. ‘Get down! Get down!’

  But so tightly packed were the troops that there was no room to get down. The most they could do was duck and cover their heads as the fighter levelled out and opened fire from its twin machine guns. Wedged upright amidst a bunch of sea-soaked soldiers Rusty tried to make herself as small as possible as a line of strafing bullets cut through the sea and ripped into the side of Light Heart. Someone in the pack of men screamed in agony as he was hit, at the same time as another trooper not more than two away from Rusty yelled that he’d been hit in the legs. Another held his face in his hands, through which blood was seeping as his mate began to cradle his stricken companion in his arms. Turning her head as far as she could Rusty searched the skies to see if the fighter plane was returning to take care of its sitting duck of a target, but to her infinite relief she saw the plane swinging hard left to the shoreline, finally to disappear in the pall of black smoke from the still smouldering oil installations.

  They were now well in reach of the frigate, and men were starting to climb all sorts and sizes of ropes and ladders on its side when two more fighter planes appeared from the clouds above them to swoop down as if to strafe them once again. But as they levelled out and roared overhead a cheer went up as everyone saw the round red, white and blue emblem of the RAF on the underside of their wings. Another great cheer arose from the soldiers as they saw the Spitfires rushing to engage the enemy.

  Once they had seen their passengers safely on board the frigate, David paused to examine Light Heart for damage. There were several gaping holes in the starboard side of the boat, but whereas when she had been fully laden the damage had been well below the water line, now it was clear.

  ‘Come aboard with us,’ one of the officers yelled down to David.

  ‘Captain and First Mate never abandon ship, however many holes,’ David yelled back. ‘We never abandon. Never!’

  Rusty’s heart sang on hearing these proud words. She had always worshipped Davey Kinnersley – ‘Mr Kinnersley’ as she had always thought of him – and now she knew she would die for him.

  The fact that he did not even bother to turn for confirmation to Rusty, but restarted the boat’s engine before heading back to the mayhem behind them, would always be one of the great moments of her life.

  For a few seconds she found herself smiling proudly at his back.

  ‘As I see it you will have to regulate the numbers a bit better this time, Mr Kinnersley,’ she called to him, as they turned about.

  ‘Regulate, no less.’ David stared back briefly at Rusty, poker-faced. ‘Suppose we could always try issuing tickets.’

  ‘All aboard the Skylark, trips around the bay—’ Rusty sang out suddenly, for no reason that she could think feeling braver than ever.

  ‘I thought we might not go in quite so far this time. Can’t risk that much more damage to Light Heart!’ David called back to her, over the noise that was increasing the nearer they drew to the scene of battle. ‘Just try and pick up a few stragglers.’

  Rusty hardly heard him, already searching the waters in front of them for any soldiers detached from the main body of men.

  ‘There!’ She pointed. ‘To port, Mr Kinnersley! Hard to port!’

  Within the next ten or so minutes they picked up a few lone soldiers who were all trying to make it on their own.

  ‘Got room for another couple, chum?’ the last trooper aboard asked, as he flopped down exhausted on the seat in the cockpit. ‘Poor sod over there’s just had his boat blown out of the water.’

  The soldier pointed to a couple of men making heavy weather of it about a hundred yards away, while in the distance Rusty caught sight of a couple of enemy fighters appearing on the scene.

  ‘Came in for us and then got blown out of the water,’ the soldier shouted to David.

  At that moment Rusty also called to David, pointing upwards as yet more enemy aircraft circled ominously overhead. ‘I don’t think we can go back now, Mr Kinnersley.’

  But as she protested the soldier grabbed Light Heart’s wheel from her and directed the boat towards the two men. David reached out as one of them, obviously the more seriously wounded of the two, slipped from his mate’s grasp and began to float away from the boat.

  ‘Boat-hook!’ David cried. ‘Where’s the damn’ boat-hook? Rusty?’

  Rusty started to look as David leaned over ever further until finally, and inevitably, he was in the water.

  ‘Mr Kinnersley!’ she yelled, hurrying to the rail and sticking the boat-hook out as far as she could. ‘Mr Kinnersley – here! Grab this!’

  But it was too late. David was swimming away from the boat.

  ‘Mr Kinnersley!’ Rusty screamed, realising the futility of her skipper’s heroics as he closed the distance between himself and the two sinking bodies ahead.

  But even if he heard
her, David was not for turning, although one of the enemy aircraft was completing the half circle it was making over the beach to head back out to sea and the ragged flotilla of rescue boats.

  For a moment it seemed the plane was heading hard to the right towards a group of four or five craft, but at the last minute it appeared to switch direction and the next thing Rusty knew it was heading straight for them, guns blazing.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ one of the soldiers nearest to Rusty yelled. ‘Bloody hell, he’s coming straight at us!’

  The Messerschmitt was over and past in a second, somehow miraculously missing its target altogether, its torrent of bullets screaming overhead to tear into the sea beyond Light Heart. Seeing the plane fast disappearing, Rusty turned her attention back to David and his rescue mission. Still swimming strongly, by now he had reached his target and turned himself on his back half underneath him to begin the slow and laborious task of returning to the boat with the first of his burdens. It was not until Rusty helped haul the man aboard that she realised exactly why David had already started back for the other.

  Chapter Nine

  Loopy stared around the small cottage that backed on to fields behind, and was fronted by a narrow country road that led past its neat iron railings. One way and another she had been keeping an eye on Owl Cottage ever since the last of the two Misses Harding had been gathered, as the Reverend Hodson always called it – and now, with a dip into her precious savings, she had gone one better and bought it from their estate, with one person and one person alone in mind – her second son Walter, at sea somewhere.

  Walter had been gone for what seemed to his mother like years not months now, but being of a golden nature he never forgot to write to his parents, his usual amusing and cheerful letters, whenever it was perfectly possible.

  ‘We’re not going to live at Owl Cottage, are we, Mother, because of the war?’ Dauncy asked her, his expression anxious as he bounced a tennis ball endlessly against one of the cottage walls.