The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  She stood looking down at Ella for a few moments and, returning her gaze, the girl thought the older woman seemed to be struggling to find the right words.

  ‘Rob’s just told me what happened. I’m sorry I smacked you, lass, on top of the stings an’ all. But you should have told me ya’sen.’

  Her gaze never leaving Esther’s face, Ella sat up slowly. She couldn’t remember ever having heard a grown-up apologize to a child before. She stared in amazement at her grandmother. She was a funny woman, the girl thought, not for the first time. Sharp almost to the point of unkindness at times, unable to show any affection for her grand-daughter, and yet here she was standing in front of Ella, admitting she had been hasty and wrong and saying sorry.

  Well, if Esther Godfrey could be honest enough to apologize, Ella Hilton was not one to bear a grudge. For a moment she forgot her discomfort and smiled suddenly at her grandmother.

  ‘That’s all right, Gran,’ she said, disarmingly. ‘You weren’t to know. I don’t like telling tales, you see. I once told Mum about something that had happened – but – but it only made it worse next day at school.’

  Esther sat down on the bed and they looked at each other. ‘Tell me about it?’ Her voice was unusually gentle.

  Suddenly, the young girl was overwhelmed with a feeling of warmth, of cosy intimacy. There were just the two of them in the bedroom, and her grandmother was actually sitting there, listening to her; taking notice of her.

  So, she blurted out the whole story of the snowball incident, and at the end, Esther touched Ella’s cheek where the nettle stings were now making her face look swollen and said softly, ‘So you don’t want me to go and see Mrs Souter?’

  ‘Oh, no, Gran.’ Her eyes were wide with a new fear. ‘Please, please don’t.’

  Esther nodded. She was still holding the huge green leaves and as Ella’s gaze dropped, she shook them a little so that they quivered. ‘Rob brought these for you.’

  Ella giggled. ‘What are they? Flowers?’

  Esther smiled too. ‘No. They’re dock leaves. If you rub them on a nettle sting, it’s supposed to take away the pain.’

  Ella grimaced. ‘We’ll need a lot, Gran,’ she said, and pushed back the bedclothes to show the white blemishes covering her arms and legs.

  Esther looked down at the mass of stings and Ella could see that her grandmother was imagining the pain she was suffering. ‘Aw, lass, I am sorry. What a naughty boy that Jimmy Souter is. If it’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s an untruthful child.’

  ‘You won’t go there, though, will you? Promise, Gran?’

  Esther sighed but said, ‘I promise.’

  Ella relaxed. What was it her mum had always said? ‘Me mam always keeps her word. Good or bad she never relents. She’s got a will of iron.’

  Esther crushed the leaves in her hands and began to smooth them over Ella’s arms and legs. ‘I don’t know whether it will soothe this lot, but it’s worth a try.’

  And as Ella watched her grandmother’s bent head, she smiled to herself. It was almost worth all the discomfort to gain her grandmother’s attention for a few precious moments.

  The following afternoon as she walked home alone – Janice had gone to the dentist straight after school – she heard the ‘whoosh’ of tyres on the loose gravel at the side of the lane behind her and turned to see Rob hurtling towards her.

  ‘Seen Jimmy?’

  ‘I think he’s keeping out of my way.’

  Rob grinned. ‘Reckon he can’t mek you out.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re different.’

  Ella’s mouth tightened. ‘Don’t remind me,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Eh?’ He looked at her, his eyes wide and then, as he realized what she was thinking, he said, ‘Dun’t be daft. As if I’d say owt about that.’

  She was suddenly contrite. No, to be fair, though they sparred with each other and he called her Townie, he had never teased her about the circumstances of her birth. She grinned up at him as he wobbled precariously on his bike trying to slow his pace to match hers. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I should think so, too,’ he said, pretending huffiness, but he was smiling too. ‘No, what I meant was – before you got so touchy – is that you’re such a little spitfire usually, but yesterday, he couldn’t believe it when you didn’t run home telling tales to your gran, ’cos she’d have caused a rumpus up at Souters,’ his grin broadened, ‘even if only to get her own back at Mrs Souter for storming to Brumbys’ Farm not long back.’

  ‘Oh, you heard about that, then?’

  ‘Jimmy told us.’

  They went on in silence, then he said, ‘We’re off shrimpin’ after tea. You coming?’

  ‘If Gran’ll let me.’ But for once, after yesterday, Ella was sure the answer would be ‘yes’.

  The nettle stings had settled to a tingling sensation and, as she set off with Rob, armed with her newly repaired shrimping net, she almost forgot about them. As they crested the first line of dunes and her gaze spanned the flat marshland before her, Ella gasped. ‘Oh! Oh, isn’t it pretty?’

  Before her the marsh was a mass of pink and mauve.

  ‘It’s sea-lavender.’ Rob stood beside her. ‘One of the plants that’ll grow on a saltmarsh.’

  Ella snorted with laughter. ‘Pity it’s not a crop Gran can grow after the floods. She’s still moaning about how long it will take for the land to get back to normal.’

  They were quiet for a moment, remembering. Then with a ‘Come on,’ from Rob they were running down the dune and galloping across the marsh, jumping the rivulets and skirting round the deeper creeks. As they raced down the second line of dunes and on to the beach, Rob shouted, ‘There’s Janice and Jimmy, look, near the water’s edge. Come on, let’s go and see what they’re up to.’

  As they drew closer, she could see the Souters were watching a large cylindrical metal object, rolling about in the shallows, being washed nearer and nearer the beach by the tide. The boys stripped off their shoes and socks and scampered through the shallows to wade into the deeper water.

  Ella stood beside Janice. The boys had reached the cylinder and, with the aid of the waves, were pushing it towards the beach. When it came to rest on the sand, though they shoved and heaved, they could move it no further. Jimmy Souter kicked at it with his foot. ‘It’s bloomin’ heavy an’ it’s all rusty. What do you think it is?’

  Janice glanced at Ella. ‘Do you think it’s treasure off a pirate ship? Y’know, a tin box crammed full with jewels and gold sovereigns.’

  Ella was hardly listening. She was staring at it, a slight frown on her forehead. It was pointed at one end and on the other the metal was shaped into fins. It looked vaguely familiar. Now where . . . ?

  Suddenly, she was splashing through the water without even taking off her shoes and socks to grab Rob’s arm and yell, ‘Come away – quick! It’s a bomb!’

  They stared at her as if she had suddenly gone mad.

  ‘I tell you it’s a bomb!’ She tugged at Rob’s arm.

  ‘Ouch, ya hurting, Ella—’

  She gave him an almighty shove towards the beach. ‘Come on. You too Jimmy. Quick.’ She grasped him, pushing him away, all animosity forgotten in a moment.

  ‘Eh, who are you shovin’?’ Jimmy began, but Rob, catching something of the panic in Ella’s tone said, ‘Do as she ses!’

  As they reached the sand, Ella just said, ‘Run!’ and they all scampered up the beach, their flying feet sending up little showers of sand.

  They reached the first line of dunes and jumped into a sandy hollow, where they lay on their stomachs and, breathless, peeped over the top to look back at the bomb, lying deceptively benign, on the sand, the waves running around it from time to time, but not moving it now.

  ‘You’re daft, Ella Hilton. ’Ow can that be a bomb?’ Jimmy began, but all three were now looking at her questioningly, demanding an explanation for her erratic behaviour.

  She sat up and to
ok a deep breath to steady her shaking limbs. She looked at each of them in turn and said quietly, ‘My mum was a driver in the WAAFs in the war for a Commanding Officer. She’s got – had – a lot of photos. I used to like looking through them. There were some pictures of WAAFs driving a sort of tractor pulling a long trailer with bombs on it. She told me . . .’ She bit her lip, the hurt coming back as she was obliged to talk about her mother. ‘That was when they were “bombing up” the aircraft.’ Ella fell silent for a moment, almost hearing Kate’s voice again in her head. ‘The WAAFs used to do all sorts in the war, drive the bomb trains out to the aircraft, take the crews out an hour before take-off and meet them again when they came back – if they came back . . .’

  ‘What did you do, Mum?’ Ella could hear herself asking again.

  ‘Me? Oh, I had a real cushy number. I was personal driver for the Station Commander.’

  ‘Was he nice?’

  Then Kate would look down at her daughter and say softly, ‘He was a lovely man, a wonderful man.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jimmy’s insistent voice dragged her back to the present.

  Ella nodded towards the bomb lying innocently on the sand. ‘The things on the trailer looked just like that.’

  ‘Oh, heck,’ Rob said. ‘What ought we to do?’

  ‘Report it, of course,’ Ella said, with prompt decisiveness. ‘You stay here and watch no one goes near it.’ She glanced up and down the beach but, except for a few holiday-makers in the far distance, there was no one. ‘Don’t go near it yourselves but if anyone looks like coming, tell them to keep away.’

  Rob said, ‘Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No,’ Ella said. ‘You stay here and mind they do as I say.’ She glanced at the two Souters and then back at Rob as if to say silently, ‘I don’t trust them to believe me, ’specially Jimmy.’

  Solemnly Rob nodded. ‘Get me dad, Ella. He’ll know for sure.’

  She gave him a quick grin. ‘Good idea,’ and added, pulling her mouth into a quirky smile, ‘He’ll probably believe me better than Gran will, anyway. Here—’ She thrust her shrimping net towards him. ‘Look after that for me. I can run faster without it.’

  And then she was off, up the dunes, across the pink carpet of sea-lavender, over the westerly dunes and into the lane. On again up the lane towards Rookery Farm.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, love?’ Rosie’s startled tone greeted her.

  ‘Uncle Danny,’ Ella gasped, ‘I must find Uncle Danny.’

  ‘He’s over at yar gran’s, but—’

  But Ella was off again, ‘Sorry, Aunty Rosie, it’s urgent.’

  Across the lane, over the stile and through the meadow, straight through the long grass, heedless of the dire warnings that she must not trample down the precious hay crop, through the hole in the hedge, round the corner of the house and – thank goodness – there he was, standing in the middle of the yard with her grandparents.

  ‘Uncle Danny – come quick! There’s a bomb on the beach. Rob – and the Souters – are watching it, but you must come!’

  ‘Steady on, lass. Whatever are you on about?’ Danny began.

  Her grandmother clicked her tongue against her teeth in exasperation. ‘Now what mischief are you into, Missy?’

  Ella, red-faced and breathless, was almost weeping now. She took hold of Danny’s arm as if to pull him physically after her. ‘Please, Uncle Danny!’

  ‘Why do you think it’s a bomb?’

  ‘Mum’s photos from the war. It’s just like them – please!’

  The two men, Danny and her grandfather, exchanged a glance. ‘She could be right, you know,’ Jonathan said seriously. ‘There was one washed up further north. I remember reading about it.’ There was a sudden expression of fear on his face. ‘It – it blew up.’

  Turning back to Ella, Danny said, ‘Run and ask your aunty Rosie to phone the police.’ Since the floods, Rookery Farm now had a telephone. ‘Tell her I said so. Come on, Mester, we’ll go and see.’

  He was limping away as fast as his wounded leg would allow with Jonathan following and Ella running back the way she had just come, leaving Esther standing helplessly in the yard not quite sure just what she ought to do.

  It was indeed a bomb and over the next few hours from the comparative safety of a sandy hollow in the dunes, the three children and the two men watched the flurry of excitement as the police arrived to cordon off the area.

  ‘Look, they’re building a wall of sandbags round it,’ Rob pointed.

  ‘I ought to be getting back to help with the milking,’ Jonathan murmured once, but made no move.

  ‘Our mam’ll give us heck when we get home,’ Janice remarked, but she too stayed where she was, parting the thick grass to watch.

  Jimmy could hardly contain his excitement and kept jumping up only to be dragged down again by one of the others.

  A policeman was walking towards them and, as he approached, they stood up but did not move out of the hollow. After taking a few details down in his notebook from the children, he said, ‘It turns out it’s the responsibility of the Royal Navy being as it’s between the high- and low-water mark, and they can’t get here until tomorrow.’

  ‘What’ll they do?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Blow it up? Can we watch, Mester?’

  ‘They might defuse it where it is, or they might tow it out a good distance offshore and then blow it up. In the latter case, yes, you could watch from the sandhills. But if they defuse it there . . .’ he jerked his thumb over his shoulder and shook his head ‘. . . no way will you be allowed anywhere along this bit of beach.’ The policeman grinned at the disappointed chorus of ‘aws’ from the youngsters and spread his hands in a gesture of apology to the two men who looked just as put out.

  ‘Well,’ he said, putting his notebook back into his pocket. ‘Looks like a long night ahead for me and the lads.’ With a wave he set off back across the sand.

  ‘Is he going to stand guard all night?’ Janice asked.

  ‘I expect so,’ Jonathan murmured. ‘Come on, we’d better get back home.’

  As they came to the gate at Brumbys’ Farm, they heard the sound of voices and saw Esther standing talking to two men, waving her hands and saying, ‘All this fuss and nonsense. Left here to do the milking on me own—’ She broke off as she saw their approach. ‘Oh, there you are!’ she said accusingly. ‘Fine time to come traipsing home, leaving me here to cope with all the work and now these fellers from the paper—’

  The two men, swiftly losing interest in Esther and her ranting, turned. ‘We’re from the local paper—’ One held a notebook in his hand and the other carried a camera. ‘Who actually found the bomb?’

  The two Souter children both began to speak at once. ‘We did – we found it.’

  ‘You gonna tek our picture, Mester, fer the paper?’

  ‘We knew it was a bomb straight away,’ Jimmy said, puffing out his chest importantly. ‘I’ve seen pictures.’

  Ella, glancing at her grandmother’s pursed lips and angry eyes, began to sidle away. If the Souters wanted to take all the credit, she thought, let them. I’ll only be in more bother with Gran if I—

  But Rob was not going to let the Souters get away with their lies. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘They found it, yeah, that’s true and when me an’ Ella got there, it was in the shallows. Jimmy and me started to push it on to the sand, but it was too heavy. Then suddenly, Ella starts shouting that it’s a bomb.’

  The man with the notebook was writing furiously. ‘Which one’s Ella?’

  Her heart sank as Rob reached out and pulled her forward. ‘This is Ella. It was her who knew it was a bomb . . .’ He cast a glance towards the two Souters that said, contradict me if you dare. ‘It was her who’d seen the pictures.’

  The reporter was bending towards her. ‘What pictures were those, young lady?’ He was smiling down encouragingly at her.

  ‘I – er . . .’ She glanced towards her grandmother, unsure what she should say. Then she felt her g
randpa’s hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s all right, love, you can tell the gentleman.’

  So, whilst they all stood and listened and the little man wrote furiously and the other man fiddled with his camera, Ella told them.

  ‘Can we speak to your mum?’

  The girl shook her head, suddenly unable to speak.

  ‘Her mother was drowned in the floods,’ Jonathan said quietly, and although the reporter said softly, ‘Oh, how dreadful,’ there was a sudden gleam in his eyes: here was a wonderful, poignant story.

  ‘Where was your mum stationed in the WAAFs, then?’

  Ella glanced up at her grandfather for help. Even she wasn’t quite sure about that.

  ‘Suddaby,’ he said.

  ‘What did she do?’

  Here Jonathan turned to Danny who said, ‘She was an MT driver.’

  Jimmy, determined not to be left out of all the limelight falling on Ella, nudged her and said, ‘Is that all? You told us she drove a Commanding Officer about in his big car. I knew you was lying.’

  ‘What’s that?’ The reporter’s trained ears missed nothing. ‘She was the CO’s driver?’

  ‘Among other duties, yes,’ Danny confirmed and Ella felt a surge of pride when she saw the astonished look on Jimmy Souter’s face.

  ‘Could we have a picture of the little girl, do you think?’ the reporter asked. Ella found herself standing, with Rob and the two Souters ranged behind her, trying to smile into the camera, but her only thought was, ‘What is Gran going to say?’

  Esther had a lot to say, but for once her chagrin was not directed at Ella. ‘Why did you let ’er tell ’em so much, Jonathan? They’ll be back day after day, asking all sorts of awkward questions, digging things up.’ She glanced meaningfully at her husband, and Ella, catching the look, knew at once that her grandmother was referring once more to the fact that Ella had no father.

  But all her grandpa would say was, ‘The child did well, Esther. You should be very proud of her common sense and quick action.’

  Esther bristled, ‘I am, of course, but . . .’

  The following morning found the two adults and the four children once again peering over the side of the hollow watching the proceedings on the beach.