‘Aye, potatoes!’ Esther said scathingly. ‘Whoever heard of beautiful fields of waving wheat and oats being replaced by ’tates?’
‘We must do what we can to help the war effort, love,’ Jonathan replied gently.
Then Esther’s wonderful smile, like the sun appearing once more, lit up her face. She put her arms about her husband and rested her head against his chest. ‘I’ll do whatever they want, as long as they don’t take you away from me this time.’
Jonathan chuckled softly. ‘We’ll be in a bad way if they have to call up men of fifty!’
Watching them, Kate smiled fondly, but in her heart she feared for Danny. Conscription had been extended now to include men up to the age of twenty-seven – Danny’s age. Would he be called up, Kate anguished, or was he safe as an agricultural worker?
At the beginning of April the enemy invaded Denmark and Norway and in May they swept through Belgium and also into Holland. Then northern France came under attack.
The menace was coming closer.
‘Danny? Where are you going?’
The late May morning was bright, the sun glistening on the water as Kate stood on the river bank, looking down into Robert Eland’s fishing boat moored at the end of the wooden jetty. Danny was packing blankets, boxes of food and tins of diesel into the stern.
‘Sheerness.’
‘Sheerness! Whatever for?’
‘Me dad had to register the boat because it’s just over thirty foot and now it’s been commandeered, so I’m takin’ it down there mesen.’
‘What for?’ she repeated.
‘I – dunno.’
‘Yes, you do. I can tell.’
He continued carrying boxes from the jetty on to the boat. ‘There’s trouble across the Channel.’
‘Is your dad going with you?’
‘No, he’s got to man the lifeboat. I’m going on me own.’
‘Then I’m coming with you.’
‘No, you’re not . . .’
But she was scrambling down the bank and marching along the wooden planking. He barred her way. ’Tis no place for a woman.’
Kate laughed in his face. ‘Oh no? Do you really think I’m going to let you go without me!’
‘Kate, yar mam . . .’
‘Me mam’s got nowt to do with it. I’m of age, aren’t I?’ The dialect, which she had made valiant efforts to smooth out in her working life, came back strongly when she was angry. And she was angry now.
‘Well, ya not dressed right.’
‘Then I’ll go home and get mesen dressed in trousers and warm clothes.’
‘Ya’ll need oilskins . . .’
She pointed beyond him at the boat bobbing gently on the swell of the river. ‘You’ve always got a spare pair on board. I’ve seen ’em.’
‘Oh, you!’ Danny said, half exasperated, half amused. ‘Ya know too much for ya own good. Go on, then.’
‘You’ll wait for me? You’ll not go without me?’
Now he was grinning broadly. ‘I wouldn’t dare!’
She was away and running across the turf. At twenty-seven she could still run as fast as she had at fourteen. And for the moment, any dignity which her advancing years and her position as workroom supervisor in the department store in Lynthorpe had brought her, was forgotten.
‘Bring more blankets and some food, if you can,’ he shouted after her. She did not pause but lifted her hand in acknowledgement that she had heard him.
‘And don’t forget your . . .’
‘ . . . gas mask,’ she finished for him.
Breathless, she reached Brumbys’ Farm to meet Lilian pushing her doll’s pram around the yard.
‘Shouldn’t you be doing something more useful than playing with dolls at your age?’ Kate snapped. Lilian, a gawky thirteen-year-old, never failed to irritate Kate. From a whining child she had grown into a sulky, solitary girl who seemed deliberately to shun the company of friends of her own age. To Kate’s idea, their mother pampered Lilian, who was never asked to help with the housework or farmwork as Kate had been from a very early age.
‘It was different then,’ Esther would say when Kate grumbled. ‘I was on me own and there was a war on.’
‘There’s a war on now, for heaven’s sake!’ Kate would argue.
‘But none of our family’s involved this time, thank the Lord!’
So what would her mother say, Kate thought now as she raced upstairs to find her warmest clothes, if she knew Kate was about to involve herself deliberately in something to do with the war – even though at the moment she didn’t know exactly what?
Dressed in slacks, a thick woollen jumper and grey knitted socks, Kate ran down the narrow stairs carrying three blankets. Swiftly, she packed some bread and cheese into a bag. Sitting in her father’s Windsor chair to pull on her Wellingtons, she looked up to see Lilian standing in the door watching her. ‘Tell Mam I’ve gone out in the boat with Danny. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but tell her she’s not to worry.’ Snatching a warm coat from the hook behind the door and stuffing a headscarf and a wool beret into her pocket, Kate turned back to look at her young sister. The girl looked so forlorn standing there, awkward and, even in her own home, somehow lost. Strangely moved to a feeling of tenderness, Kate planted a swift kiss on the girl’s forehead. ‘You hear, Lilian?’
The girl nodded and then suddenly flung her arms around Kate’s waist and buried her head against her. Just as suddenly, she let go and stood back, her face flaming red. Kate wasn’t sure which of them was the more embarrassed. She gave the girl a quick grin, said, ‘Take care, Lilian,’ and was gone.
Funny child, Kate thought as she hurried back to the Point. At her age I’d have been begging to go along too. Lilian hadn’t even asked where they were going. Perhaps that was just as well, though, Kate thought shrewdly. But the sudden display of emotion from her sister had surprised Kate.
Danny was standing on the edge of the jetty, the mooring rope already unfastened.
‘Hop in and start her up, will ya, Kate?’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Thank goodness for ya dad and his engines!’
Kate knew the boat and its workings almost as well as Danny did, for she had often gone out to sea with him on her visits home. Good job too, she thought, Mam’ll think nothing about it when Lilian tells her.
But she would when Kate did not arrive home that night, she thought with a stab of guilt. Well, she reflected with wry humour, me mam’ll just have to break years of silence and go and ask Danny’s mother where we are if she’s that bothered!
Kate smiled to herself as she guided the boat into the centre of the river and made for the channel which led out through the intertidal marsh and into the North Sea. She doubted very much that even a war would make Esther Godfrey speak to Beth Eland!
They chugged steadily out to sea and turned southwards, following the coastline. It was a long way and would take them a long time to get there.
‘I just hope we’re in time for whatever it is they want,’ Danny said, as they settled themselves for the hours ahead.
‘Just look at all them boats!’ Danny was standing up in the prow of his boat. It looked as if hundreds of small craft of all shapes and sizes were heading for Sheerness. He turned and looked back at Kate. ‘This looks like something big, Kate, I dun’t reckon you ought to have come . . .’
Kate gave him one of her looks and he raised his hand, palm outwards, as if to fend off an impending attack. ‘All right, all right . . .’
She grinned at him but kept her hand firmly on the tiller. ‘I never said a word,’ she shouted across the breeze.
‘No – but ya looked it!’
Somehow they found a place to moor and joined the rest of the boatmen on the quay.
As they walked towards the building where they had to report their arrival, Kate took a beret from her coat pocket and pulled it over her thick hair, tucking stray strands beneath it. In trousers, a bulky jumper and jacket, she could pass for a young boy. Only her luxur
ious auburn hair gave her away!
Very soon they found out why their boats were needed. The British Expeditionary Forces were virtually trapped on the coast of France at a place called Dunkirk and had to be rescued. Enemy planes were strafing the beaches, and the opposing army was closing in around them. Every available boat was needed to bring the soldiers off the beaches.
One of the boat owners proposed that he should take his own boat across and suddenly there was a chorus of offers. After a brief consultation among the senior officers, they agreed to the suggestion.
Silently the boatmen listened as they heard what their mission was to be; to bring the men off the beaches to ships anchored offshore. Larger boats could bring as many as they were able to carry safely back across the Channel if they wished. It seemed that off the beaches where the soldiers waited, the water was very shallow and some of the larger vessels could get nowhere near the shore.
‘It’s dangerous,’ they were warned. ‘The enemy are shelling from inland and there’s the Luftwaffe to contend with too . . .’
‘Kate . . .’ She felt Danny’s grasp upon her arm. ‘I really don’t think . . .’
She looked into his brown eyes, her own almost on a level with his. ‘Danny, ya can’t possibly man the boat on ya own and rescue people.’
‘No, Katie. It’ll be dangerous. You’re not coming. I won’t let you.’ His fingers tightened on her arm. ‘What if – what if something were to happen to you?’
‘Something might happen to you,’ she whispered.
They stared at each other and his sigh was cool on her cheek. ‘Please, Katie, stay here where it’s safe.’
She shook her head. ‘No, Danny,’ she said with quiet firmness. ‘I’m coming. I can’t stay here – just waiting – while you’re out there. Besides,’ she added grinning cheekily, trying to lighten what was a very desperate situation. ‘Think I’d let you out alone in France?’
‘All right,’ he said heavily. ‘But if it’s really bad I’ll put you on one of the big ships.’
Kate grinned. She’d argue that when they got there, she thought, but said nothing.
Pulling her beret down well over her hair, she hovered behind Danny as they formed a queue to sign a form. In the mêlée she managed to scribble her signature and was out and following Danny back to the boat before anyone had realized she was a girl.
The sea was amazingly calm and the weather smiling benignly on their venture. Yet as they drew near the French coast, towed by one of the large vessels to save their precious fuel, the breeze whipped across the water, making the seas choppy.
Ahead now Kate saw a black pall of smoke rising above the town, and heard the thud of gunfire from the shore. Four black lines snaked out into the water. She squinted through the drifting smoke, there was something odd . . .
‘Danny!’ she clutched his arms. ‘Look, those are men standing in the water!’
Lines of soldiers, standing three abreast up to their chests in the freezing water, formed disciplined queues stretching from the shore out towards the boats.
‘Poor buggers!’ Danny muttered, and Kate knew the sight had affected him deeply for she hardly ever heard Danny swear.
They were released from their tow and Danny started up the engine and steered the boat towards the nearest line of men. From the west came the steady hum of aircraft, growing louder and louder, nearer and nearer. Then they heard the sound of gunfire from three planes coming in low.
‘Get down, Kate!’ Danny yelled and pushed her into the bottom of the boat. She felt a jagged splinter from the planking dig into her hand.
‘Ouch, I’ve got . . .’ But the rest of her words were drowned as a plane passed overhead close to the prow of the boat, bullets splashing into the water directly in front of them. The planes flew off to the east and Kate raised her head. ‘ . . . a splinter in me hand.’
Danny ran his tongue nervously over his lips and made a valiant attempt to smile, ‘If that’s all ya get on this little trip, Kate, ya’ll be bloody lucky! Come on, they’ll be back in a minute. Let’s see if we can get a few on board. You steer and I’ll help ’em climb in.’
All along the coast the little ships pulled the men from the water, loading their small craft almost to sinking point before they chugged precariously back to the large vessels standing offshore.
Kate steered the boat while Danny helped the soldiers in. When one put his hands on the side, glanced at Kate and then hesitated, Danny said, ‘Come on, mate, up with ya.’
‘I can’t . . .’ He nodded towards Kate. ‘She’s a woman . . .’
‘So?’
‘I’ve – lost me trousers, mate. I’ve nothin’ on.’
Danny grinned down at him. ‘Born and bred on a farm, mate. You ain’t got nothing she’s not seen afore.’
There was a ripple of laughter, even amidst all the horror.
‘Come on, Bashful Bert,’ shouted another soldier waiting in line behind him. ‘Get a move on.’
Smiling, Kate averted her gaze to save the poor man’s embarrassment and when she looked again, he was wrapping a blanket around himself and grinning sheepishly at her.
‘That’s all for this time,’ Danny shouted. ‘We can only take fifteen at a time.’
‘Can’t we hang on to the side, mate?’ one of the soldiers still waiting shouted.
‘Sorry,’ Danny said firmly. ‘We’ll capsize and then we’ll get no one off. We’ll be back as soon as we can . . .’ he promised, but the look on the faces of those still waiting up to their necks in the water tore at Kate’s heart.
Those they had taken on board sat hunched and silent. Their faces were streaked with oil and many had at least four days’ growth of beard on their chins. One had a dirty handkerchief tied around one eye, another was only in his vest and underpants and all were wet through and shivering.
Kate opened one of the boxes and passed some bread and cheese and apples round. ‘I’m sorry we’ve nothing hot,’ she apologized.
A young soldier – no more than a boy, he seemed to Kate – wolfed the food, stuffing the bread into his mouth.
‘How – how long have you been without food?’
‘Three days, Miss. We’ve been on the beach for two, wading out into the water when it looked like a ship was coming, then back to the dunes again when the enemy planes came over . . .’
Suddenly Kate’s hand seemed frozen on the tiller as a dreadful fear clutched her. This could happen on our beaches! The thought terrified her.
She shuddered, thinking of the peaceful tranquillity of the beach at home; she couldn’t imagine Fleethaven Point becoming a place of death with guns blasting and soldiers fleeing for their lives into the dunes and bodies floating in the sea . . .
We can’t let it happen, she thought suddenly. We have to help stop it happening – Danny and I. We must.
Until this moment the war had seemed far away; unreal. Oh, they’d read the papers, but it hadn’t really affected their small community.
Now – off the beaches of Dunkirk – it was very real.
On their fourth trip back to the lines of waiting men, Danny shouted. ‘Give us a hand here, Kate, this one can’t help himself. He’s about had it.’
‘Here – hold this,’ she asked one of the soldiers already in the boat.
‘Anything you say, Cap’n.’ The soldier’s face was black with oil, and his clothes were saturated, but he still managed a grin as she handed the tiller over to him and moved down the boat to help Danny.
The man Danny was trying to bring aboard was in a semi-conscious state, almost sinking under the water. ‘Give him a shove up, will ya, mate?’ Danny asked the man waiting next to him.
‘Shouldn’t bother,’ put in one of the soldiers already in the boat. ‘He’s only RAF. Where are they, that’s what I’d like to know? Ain’t seen one of our planes all day.’
‘Shut up!’ said the man next to him. ‘He’s here, ain’t he? He must have been doing something. There’s a lot of sky up ther
e. Here, Miss, let me give you a hand.’
The men carefully shuffled position in the boat so that the friendly soldier moved to Kate’s side. ‘Come on, mate, let’s be having you back to good old Blighty.’
They hauled him into the bottom of the boat where he lay with his eyes closed. The sleeve of his pilot’s jacket was ripped open and blood oozed out, mixing with the sea water. Kate took off her scarf and wrapped it round the man’s arm, tying it at the back of his neck in a makeshift sling.
‘Danny, are there any blankets left?’
‘No – we’ve used ’em all.’
‘Here, Miss, take mine,’ said the soldier who had helped pull the airman aboard.
‘The glamour boys get all the attention,’ grumbled the soldier who had already moaned about the RAF.
‘Shut it, will you?’ muttered the friendly one. ‘Else I’ll shut it for you.’
The other sniffed. ‘All the same – the women . . .’
The other man put his mouth close to the grumbling soldier’s ear, but Kate still caught his words. ‘This lass had no need to come and save your miserable hide. Risking her life, she is. So shut it!’
Danny turned the boat around and headed out to sea, the small craft low in the water with the weight. Kate bent over the airman and was relieved to hear a low moan escape his lips. She tapped his face with the flat of her hand, not exactly a slap but sharp enough to try and rouse him.
‘That’s right, Miss,’ the friendly one encouraged. ‘Don’t let ‘im go to sleep. The cold will kill him, else.’
Kate put her mouth close to the airman’s ear, her whole attention now on the injured man. ‘Come on, try to wake up. What’s your name?’
She continued to talk to him, gently tapping his cheek to try to rouse him, while in the sky above, enemy aircraft swooped in again from the west, strafing the beaches and sending the waiting soldiers diving for cover in the dunes. The planes shot off to the east but turned and came back over the water, this time aiming for the small boats loaded with soldiers. Further out to sea, two more planes dropped bombs close to the larger ships waiting for the retreating British Army.
Kate hardly noticed the noise now; she was trying to wrap an already sodden blanket around the airman. She sat down in the bottom of the boat and cradled the man in her lap, wrapping her arms around him and holding him close, rubbing his back to try to warm him.
The Fleethaven Trilogy Page 56