by Tom Holt
‘Typical!’ snorted Lucia, and she slammed down the instrument. She sought about her effects for some makeshift weapon, but all she could find was a cucumber, intended as a gift for the elderly and confused, but which had been politely refused on grounds of indigestibility. She wrapped her scarf around the vegetable so that it vaguely resembled some concealed firearm, and set off with a firm step towards the marches. Every shadow, in that uncertain twilight, seemed to hide the presence of an unseen assailant, every doorway and street-corner appeared to harbour some desperate enemy, but her blood was up; in some way she could not rationalise, she appeared to be hunting Elizabeth through the dark and treacherous town. Two or three times she stopped, convinced that the foe was upon her, and, making a clicking noise with her tongue and back teeth, she leveled the cucumber menacingly and rasped out: ‘Kommen Sie hier!’ But each time her suspicions proved unfounded and she pressed on, only too aware that she was doing a very brave thing and unable to help speculating as to exactly how brave she was being. She very much wanted to be brave, but she was highly unwilling to be foolhardy.
Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that even the fearless Lucia would have gone headlong into such danger had not the thought of the glory that must inevitably surround her been constantly in her thoughts. As she tiptoed through the gloom, her eyes fixed on the flickering light before her, she could almost hear the excited gabble of the High Street, Evie’s awestruck squeak, Diva’s respectfully hushed twittering, the Padre speaking plain English in his excitement, and, of course, the shamefaced stammering of Major Benjy, saying that Mrs. Pillson had done his duty for him, that Mrs. Pillson was worth the whole Home Guard put together; how he held himself entirely responsible for her tragic and premature death ....
As she came to the edge of the marches, she could distinctly see the cause of the fire. An aircraft had crashed nose-first into the ground, so that its tail was raised up towards the sky, silhouetted and darkened by the brilliance of the flames that played about it. It was a single-seater fighter, and although she could not identify it by its darkened tail, she imagined that it was a Messerschmitt, possibly a night-fighter that had lost its way over France and run out of fuel over the Sussex coast. As she speculated thus over the origins of the wreckage, she became aware of a human figure slumped in an attitude of resigned despair just outside the circle of flickering light. ·
Lucia dropped to her knees and crouched behind a small .undulation in the ground. From where she was she could see that he appeared to be unarmed; there was no holster at his side or weapon in his hand, although he was a large, powerful looking man, no doubt capable of snapping her neck like a pencil. He seemed entirely preoccupied, however, with the fate of his machine; perhaps he was actually grateful that, for him, the war was over. She had read that most Germans did not believe in the war, although one did not trust all that one read in the newspapers.
Like one of Major Benjy’s tigers, she crept forward, the cucumber thrust out in front of her, taking care to be absolutely quiet. Often she paused; still the airman remained motionless. She nerved herself for the moment of reckless courage; the flames seemed to hiss encouragements to her, the cinders glowed red—red as Elizabeth’s face would be when she learned what manner of woman it was that she had tormented ....
‘Hände hoch!’ she cried and made the clicking noise again. ‘Halt, oder ich schiesse!’
‘Schiessen Sie nicht! Ich bin waffenlos!’ wailed the airman with tragic resignation in his voice. He did not turn round but raised his arms slowly in the air.
Lucia had thought no further beyond this moment, for she had hardly dared hope that she would get this far. What was she to do now? What was the German for ‘On your feet!’? She racked her brain for some periphrasis, silently scanning in her mind the pages of opera libretti, for to such works was her knowledge of German confined. But alas! in neither The Magic Flute nor Parsifal, not even in the entire Nibelungs’ Ring does one character say to another ‘Get up slowly and no funny business.’ She made a wild guess.
‘Zu deinen Fuss!’ she snapped. ‘Schnell!’ The airman remained where he was. ‘So standen Sie aus?’ she suggested. ‘Bitte?’ she pleaded.
The airman turned round and looked at her, evidently mystified. She waved the cucumber threateningly and motioned him to rise. He did so.
She pointed to the town in the distance and said, ‘Eamus,’ before she remembered that that was not German but Latin.
‘Bene!’ replied the airman in the same tongue.
This, thought Lucia, is a stroke of luck, until she recollected that she still had no idea of how to say ‘Make a sudden move and I’ll blast you,’ even in Latin.
The little procession made its nervous way into the town, which was quiet and deserted. The airman, who had been silent all the way up from the marches, began to babble as he saw the town, so that Lucia was compelled to dig him in the back with the cucumber.
‘England!’ he cried. ‘Britannia!’
‘Mehercle!’ replied Lucia. There is no simple way of saying ‘yes’ in Latin. Doubtless, she thought bitterly, Algernon Wyse could think of a more elegant or idiomatic way of putting it, but then, Mr. Wyse would be hiding under his bed by this stage if he were in her shoes. Hah!
‘Cantium,’ said the airman. That was the ancient Roman name for Kent.
‘Non est Cantium,’ replied Lucia distractedly, ‘Est Sussex.’
The airman once again started to jabber in his barbaric tongue. It was most unlike the German of Lucia’s experience, but she (fortunately) had never claimed to be a German scholar. Her acquaintance with the filthy language had been made at Covent Garden and, for all she knew, the airman had a thick Bavarian brogue. She began to wonder whether anyone would ever appear to take this obnoxious person off her hands. But the town seemed to be entirely deserted and she was alone with her captive in the darkling streets.
‘Amicus sum,’ sobbed the airman in desperate tones. Lucia smiled grimly, for she had anticipated trouble. Fortunately they were at the top of Malleson Street. Surely the Home Guard must be returned by now, for it was quite dark, bringing with them every conceivable kind of lethal instrument to guard this miserable enemy. She directed her captive, who was pleading with all the eloquence of a Cicero that he was in no respect an enemy, down the street to the Institute. The blacked-out windows let out a few chinks of light and, oddly enough, there was a sound of singing.
‘Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,’ sang Major Benjy, as she thrust open the door. ‘Yo ho ho and good Lord it’s Mrs. Pillson. What you doin’ roamin’ around this time ’o night? An hoozat with you?’
‘Major Mapp-Flint,’ said Lucia contemptuously, ‘I have captured a German airman.’ And she thrust the prisoner into the throng of bewildered tradesmen. Several of them tried to hide under the table.
‘By George!’ cried the Major. ‘It’s a Hun! Don’t fire till you see the blues of his eyes! All got blue eyes, these fiends,’ he explained.
‘There is no need to fire,’ shrieked Lucia, for she was standing directly behind him. ‘He is unarmed and the British do not shoot their prisoners.’
‘That’s true,’ reflected the Major. ‘Sergeant Hopkins, restrain the prisoner!’ The burly fishmonger clapped a hand on the airman’s shoulder and thrust him into a chair. ‘I shall telephone to Hastings at once,’ continued Major Benjy. ‘Prisoner. Damn Hun. Send an armoured car.’
After a somewhat confused conversation, the Major satisfied his interlocutor in Hastings that a prisoner was to be collected from Home Guard Headquarters, Tilling, and drew towards him a crate marked ‘Explosives’. Lucia, who had read of the punishments meted out to prisoners in the Indian Mutiny, cried out in alarm, but the Major drew forth a bottle of whisky and chuckled.
‘This calls for a li’l drink,’ he said.
Lucia snorted. ‘If I were you, Major Mapp-Flint, I should not impair my faculties with liquor while there is a dangerous prisoner to be guarded.’
‘
Celebration,’ guffawed the Major. ‘Just a li’l drop to wet the prisoner’s head. Here, you guard him, you seem to be better at that sort of thing than the rest of us. By the way, where did you get that gun?’
‘Its not a gun,’ mumbled Lucia. ‘It’s a cucumber.’
‘That’s a good one,’ carolled the Major. ‘Resourceful, if you like! Captures a desperate fiend with a cucumber! Here, you’d better take my revolver.’
He drew the weapon and dropped it on the floor at the airman’s feet. Everyone froze in horror; everyone, that is, except Lucia. With the speed of a leopard, she struck the airman over the head with the cucumber, so that it disintegrated into fragments, while Hopkins retrieved the Major’s pistol and pointed it at the prisoner, who had not moved.
‘Nice work, Mrs. Pillson!’ exclaimed the fishmonger, with a world of respect in his voice. ‘We could do with you as Officer Commanding. Better than some I could mention, anyhow.’
Lucia’s face glowed with pride. Now there was a thought! She turned over this possibility in her mind during the silent half-hour that followed, until the roar of engines and the screech of brakes heralded the arrival of the Regular forces from Hastings.
A young man in Lieutenant’s uniform, flanked by two massive sergeants, burst through the door.
‘Right then,’ he said, ‘where’s this German airman of yours?’
‘There,’ growled the Major, ‘in that chair. Fiend!’
‘That,’ said the young man impatiently, ‘is an R.A.F. Flying Officer.’
‘He can’t be,’ gasped Lucia. ‘He speaks German. With a Bavarian accent.’
‘And who might you be?’
‘Emmeline Pillson. I captured him down by the marches. His aeroplane crashed there. A Messerschmitt.’
‘Well,’ drawled the Lieutenant, ‘you may be interested to know that you have captured a Wing Commander of the Polish Squadron, Royal Air Force, as you would no doubt have observed if you had taken the trouble to look at his insignia. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he enquired of the bemused Pole. ‘Can you speak any English?’
The erstwhile German gazed at him despairingly.
‘Apparently not. Well drive him over to Hastings. There’s an interpreter there.’
The Lieutenant took the airman gently by the arm and ushered him towards the door.
‘Beats me how you could have taken him for a German. Doesn’t sound a bit like German, Polish. And what’s this slimy stuff all over the floor?’
‘Cucumber,’ piped up one of the Home Guard. ‘Mrs. Pillson hit him with a cucumber.’
‘Did she indeed?’ sighed the Lieutenant. ‘Poor chap must wonder whose side you lot are on. Lieutenant Flint, no doubt you will hear from your superior officer in the morning. Our time is not without value. In the meantime, might I suggest that you and your band of pirates go and guard that wrecked plane until someone arrives to take care of it? Good evening.’
He saluted precisely and slammed the door.
Major Benjy, it was rumoured, did indeed receive a reprimand from Headquarters; but it was understood that clemency was extended owing to factors beyond his, the Major’s, control, notably the outstanding stupidity of a certain civilian, Mrs. Pillson. Had she contacted the proper authorities instead of taking it upon herself to take action a great deal of embarrassment might have been spared all round. However, the Polish officer had decided not to press charges of assault, following Mrs. Pillson’s striking him with a cucumber, and so the matter was best left there.
‘The odd thing is,’ said Elizabeth to Diva, as they stood in line at the fishmongers, ‘she’s supposed to be perfectly fluent in Polish. Entertaining the Polish nobility to lunch every other week, hobnobbing with princesses and counts. I suppose Wing Commander Sobieski must have had a thick regional accent that rendered him incomprehensible to our dear friend, although, since he is related on his father’s side to the Polish Royal Family, I find it difficult to accept. Poor Lucia! Caught out yet again in one of her little deceptions. She does bring trouble on her own head.’
‘Another thing that strikes me as odd,’ mused Diva, ‘is Major Benjy not recognising an Air Force uniform like that. Strange.’
‘Poor Benjy! We are all fallible, are we not? But then, the exhaustion of the day’s manoeuvres, the exposure to the noises and fumes of the explosives’ (here she was closer to the truth than she knew) ‘and then to be confronted in a dimly lit hall with a hysterical woman and a foreigner. He never claimed to be a linguist.’
Diva had her doubts, and, as Elizabeth, by military prerogative, bore off the last of the skate, she speculated whether it was not so much the dimly lit hall as the brilliantly lit Major that had been at least partially to blame. Deep in her vacillating heart, she felt a twinge of sympathy for Lucia. It had been very brave of her, with only a cucumber, to confront an unknown airman on a dark marsh, even if the airman had turned out to be a Polish nobleman. Admittedly, she had lied about knowing Polish, but then, nobody had believed her, so it was not a particularly heinous lie. Lucia was a show-off and a fraud two-thirds of the time; she admitted this readily. But Elizabeth was the same for three-quarters of the time and so much more malicious. True, Lucia had tried to put a stop to Bridge, and as a true Tillingite Diva abhorred this. But, on the other hand, Elizabeth had tried to put a stop to Lucia, and had effectively succeeded. No true Tillingite could let such a thing happen; life would be so much less exciting without her.
She was roused from her reverie by Mr. Hopkins assertion that there was no more mackerel either.
‘I bet Major Flint doesn’t have to worry about where his next mackerel is coming from,’ she snapped. ‘All right then, it’ll have to be herring again.’
If only the balance could be restored, she reflected, as she scuttled back to Wasters to resume her position at her watching-window. If only we could get back to where we were, with neither of them completely dominating the other. Life would be so much more fun that way. As it is, she thought bitterly, we’ll have to put up with Elizabeth’s airs and graces for ever. And Mr. Georgie’s cooking is so delicious.
Fate paused, high above the straggling clouds, and in her hands she raised two sets of golden scales. In one were placed the destinies of Britain and Germany. In the other, slightly smaller, set were the fortunes of Elizabeth and Lucia. The golden instruments wobbled for an instant, and then fell decisively.
Now then, mused Fate, if only I could combine the two ....
Chapter 13
It was a dull autumn day in the second month of Lucia’s exclusion. Elizabeth opened the back door of Grebe and walked out on to the cinder-path to inspect her garden. The ground where the tangled thickets of potato-helm had so recently slumped was now black and bare, and the red and golden hoard of Catriona and Majestic lay, secured against frost and damp, in her cellars. Although she had never quite managed to acquire the same enthusiasm for potatoes as she had for the jolies fleurs which had previously resided there, she felt deeply satisfied that something had been gained and nothing lost in return. Even the apples seemed to smile at Elizabeth, their little faces blushing in anticipation of the jam-jar and preserving bottle. She had taken thought for the morrow, unlike the attractive but essentially impractical lilies of the field. They, poor dears, would shortly be nipped by the cruel frost. Not so Elizabeth Mapp-Flint.
With her basket on her arm, she began to walk at a leisurely pace along the Bat road to Tilling. Out on the marches she could see a couple of lorries pulling away the last remains of Lucia’s Hurricane, a hurricane which had swept away (so she thought) all that was left of her rival’s establishment. She smiled and waved at the lorries, but they were too far away to notice. Soon she could clearly see the Landgate, the church-tower and the brown roofs of the town, with their sagging lines and unexpected windows. Quaint! decided Elizabeth, as she did every morning, and quite charming.
Georgie had decided to resume his sketching of the Landgate. Since he was not a civic leader he could do what he chose, an
d so, with a fresh sheet of paper and a selection of pencils, he sat down to contemplate his subject. But he was destined, it appeared, never to preserve Tilling’s outstanding monument in the amber-drop of Art (like a peach in syrup, he mused poetically) without interference from the disquieting forces of Grebe.
‘Good morning, Mr. Georgie,’ said Elizabeth brightly, ‘such a pretty picky! May I look?’
(How did she know it was pretty if she hadn’t looked? Infuriating woman!)
‘I declare I’ll never get the hang of the thing,’ he sighed, ‘though I sketch it for a hundred years and more. It always seems to be falling over backwards, and then you have to move the road round. If I move it any more you’ll have to walk out to sea to get back home this afternoon.’
‘But Mr. Georgie,’ she crooned, ‘it’s perfect. Such perspective! Don’t change a thing. Well, a little more shading there, perhaps, but otherwise quite delightful.’
‘Where? I thought the shading was the one thing I got right.’
‘Just there, I should say. Where the V is set into the stone-work. No, perhaps you were right,’ she said as his swift pencil flicked a few lines across the paper. ‘Better in that corner there.’
‘Now it looks like a croquet hoop,’ moaned Georgie. ‘How tar’some of it. I shall have to rub out the whole of the inside, and that will leave such a mess. What a bore!’
‘Never mind, Mr. Georgie. You’re nearly there. And now I won’t disturb you any more. And how is Lulu today? Quite well I trust?’