He threw then; the grip was right and the twist. They both missed it and the ball rolled to a halt yards behind, near to the trees.
‘You’re going great,’ Ed said, picking up the ball, showing Mary how to hold it and now Chris leaned forward, ready to catch. Again and again they did it until the sweat was rolling down Chris’s back and his shirt clung to him. Ed was hot too and Mary had flopped down on the grass in the shade.
Laura had made them ginger beer and they sat in the shade at the edge of the copse, hearing the bees in the grass, drinking it from enamel mugs which Chris had brought. Laura had told Chris to ask his American if he would like to come home for tea.
‘That’s kind of you all but I have to get back to base and I reckon maybe I won’t be back out again this evening.’ He reached across and dug into his jacket pocket. ‘Have a cookie.’
‘Why?’ Mary said, taking one of the biscuits, and then another. ‘Why won’t you be back out?’
The American shrugged.
Chris looked at him and asked, ‘Is the training over? Are you really going to fly properly now?’
‘Well, I guess maybe that’s what’s about to happen soon.’ Ed grinned but the smile didn’t touch his eyes and Chris looked away towards the pond.
He knew that look. It was how he felt when he saw Joe at the end of the lane and suddenly he didn’t want this man to go up in those big dark planes, dropping bombs, being shot at. He didn’t want the training to finish.
‘Maybe they’ll think you’re not ready,’ he said, looking down into his ginger beer. It was warm and not very nice. ‘Maybe the war will be over by tonight. Will it be tonight you fly?’
Ed drank back the last of his ginger beer, holding the mug in his large hand, not using the handle. Chris copied.
‘No,’ his voice was short, clipped. ‘Not tonight. We only fly in the daylight and as you say, Chris, maybe the war’ll be over by tonight.’ He grinned at the boy and reached out, flicking his hair. ‘But somehow I don’t reckon it will be. Sometimes you just got to get on with things.’
They sat watching the heat shimmering across the freshly harvested fields in the distance, seeing the wind brushing at the reeds near the pond, rippling the surface. A fly came and settled on Ed’s empty mug and a Red Admiral danced in and out of the cowslip until they could no longer see it.
When would they start the real thing, Ed wondered. He had just sent a V-mail letter back to his folks telling them that it was great over here. That he flew and trained, drank in the pub and taught baseball to an English kid. He asked them again to look after his mare because he wanted her fit when he got back. When he got back, when he got back. If he got back. He picked up a stone from the grass beside him and threw it from hand to hand.
‘No,’ he repeated. ‘Somehow I don’t think this war is going to be over by tonight.’
Chris swatted at the fly, holding out the bottle to Ed and shaking his head. ‘I guess not.’ He liked speaking the way the American did.
Ed looked at Chris. ‘So when’s your mom coming back down then?’
Chris shrugged. ‘I don’t know. When she can, I suppose. He laughed and looked at Mary who was giggling.
Ed asked, ‘So what’s funny then?’
Chris was laughing still so Mary told him that Helen had shown him how to box last time she was down.
‘Your mom? But why not your pop?’
Chris stopped laughing then and turned away. The wind was brisker now and there were ripples on the top of the pond and the reeds were shaking. There were clouds coming up from the east.
‘My dad’s dead,’ Chris said, still looking away, but then he turned and faced the man who was running the rim of the cup over his lips, backwards and forwards. ‘He was German. He was in a camp. They killed him. He was brave.’ The words were high-pitched, clipped, but they were out, for the first time they were out and what would Ed do? Would he move away from him, pick up his ball, his jacket and go?
Ed touched his shoulder. ‘That’s tough, real tough.’ That was all. He didn’t move, he didn’t shout. His voice had been kind. Chris looked across at Mary and she smiled. He pushed his hand into his pocket and took out Willi’s letter which he always carried now. It had seemed too dead somehow, in the top drawer.
He pushed it into Ed’s hand and then got up and walked to the tin bath, rubbing at the dried mud with a stick, clearing it off the sides, watching it drop as fine as sand into the bottom. He rubbed and rubbed and tipped the bath upside down, banging the base and then he rolled it over again. It was clean.
He picked up the plank and straddled it across and then he heard Ed walking towards him and Mary was there too. He didn’t look round but took the letter and shoved it in his pocket.
‘I thought I’d tie the drums on, then we can see if it floats,’ Chris said, still not looking round.
They worked on the raft, tying, knotting, securing, and nothing was said until it floated out across the pond, tethered by the frayed rope which they had kept hidden in an old wooden box in the reeds.
Chris stood with his hands in his pockets, grinning at Mary and then up at Ed, who smiled back. ‘That’s going to be great,’ he said, putting his hand on Chris’s shoulder.
Mary took the rope from Chris. ‘I told ’im,’ she said. ‘I told him about Joe. He wants to see what your mum taught you.’
Chris bit back his anger. How could she tell? It was their secret. Ed mustn’t know he was afraid. How could she tell? He snatched the rope back.
‘You should shut up,’ he hissed at her. It was cooler now. There were goose pimples on her arms. He hoped she was cold.
‘No, she shouldn’t shut up.’ Ed’s voice was firm. ‘She should have told someone a lot sooner. You need to give this Joe guy a good lesson, one he won’t forget. Like your pop gave those Nazis, like your grandpa is trying to do out there in Germany.’ He nodded at Chris’s surprise.
‘Yeah, Mary told me that too. But you need the tools to do the job, kid. You need to know what you’re doing or how can you fight back? No one can expect you to. Britain couldn’t do it. It needed all this stuff from the States. How can I fly without a plane? How can you fight back against this kid without knowing how? You’re just like the rest of us. Brave enough but scared too. It’s crazy not to be scared. It keeps you alive sometimes.’
Chris felt the American’s hands on his shoulders. They were gripping too tightly and he remembered the look in Ed’s face earlier. He was frightened too. That’s why he was digging his fingers in like he was. Ed was frightened, and if a big man like that was, it didn’t matter so much that Chris Weber was scared too.
So he showed Ed his right hand out in front, his left hand close in to his chin and the position of his feet but he still didn’t feel comfortable. He stood up and shook his head when Ed asked if he was a southpaw. ‘You know, left-handed.’
He shook his head and Ed smiled. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Your mom is some sort of special lady but she’s learned from a southpaw. You need to put your left hand forward like this.’ Ed’s eyes had lines at the corners when he smiled and the sky was blue above. The trees from the copse were throwing shadows far out across the grass and Chris felt happy right down to his fingertips to be here by the pond with him.
Pitching was forgotten for the next half-hour while Ed taught Chris and Mary too, because she did not want to be left out.
It didn’t matter hitting Ed. He was big and strong, not like his mother and so his shoulders loosened and his head came down and he pretended Ed was Joe and landed punches, getting through Ed’s guard.
He was stronger now from the pitching. He could feel it and he was quicker too. But it was something else as well. This man knew that he was half German and it didn’t matter to him. Gee, he had said. Some Americans are Germans and Italians. How d’you think they feel fighting their own people? And should we hate them because they’re Germans or Italians? It’s what they are that’s important, isn’t it? It’s the ideas we’re fi
ghting against, isn’t it?
Chris punched harder, rhythmically in time to that last sentence, It’s the ideas we’re fighting against, isn’t it, isn’t it? until Ed called to him to stop, yelling at Mary too who was shadow-boxing just two feet away. He showed them then how to use judo throws because boxing sometimes wasn’t enough, but it was getting late. Before he left, though, he kicked Chris’s feet out from beneath him, quickly, neatly and the grass was close to his face and smelt fresh and clean. Ants were running in amongst the stems.
‘Remember that one,’ Ed said, breathing heavily as he bent to pick up his jacket, looking at his watch, then breaking into a jog. He had reached the copse, ready to run through it out on to the fields and then down the road to the base but stopped and turned. ‘Hey,’ he called. ‘When’s the next drop for the postal order?’
Chris sat up and cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Next Saturday; ten hundred hours.’
Ed waved. ‘Keep practising and watch out for Mary. She swings a mean punch.’ He turned and was gone and Chris realised he hadn’t wished him luck.
All that week it was overcast, the cloud hung low over England and Europe.
‘The summer’s finally over,’ Laura said as she ironed before the kitchen stove on Thursday afternoon.
Chris could smell the fresh hot linen and was glad of the cloud because it meant the bombers were not flying; that the training had not turned into something more dangerous. It meant Ed was safe.
He practised all that week, sparring against Mary near the pond but he couldn’t bring himself to hit her. She hit him though, and once he got angry and stalked off through the flattened grass, hearing her laugh, and he wished that Joe would walk round the corner that very minute so he could knock his block off while he was still angry.
He had to meet Joe in the woods because the crossroads was too busy with American jeeps and on Thursday he felt tired and taut because there were only two days now before he must stand up to him. He had decided that he could not wait any longer because his father had been brave and there were men out there in bombers with the same feeling in their stomachs and they went, so he must. On Friday he felt sick and his head hurt but there was only one day and night left.
Mary came round and she dodged and weaved in the garden and made him angry again but it didn’t last. It was only the fear that was left as darkness fell and he climbed the stairs to bed on legs that felt too tired to carry him. He wrote to his mother that night in the candlelight of his bedroom, bending low over the paper, his hand tight on his pencil. He liked the flickering light, it gave off heat and a waxy smell which was comforting.
He told her that tomorrow, Saturday, he was going to face the boys. That his friend Ed had shown him how to do some judo throws. He did not tell her that she had taught him as a southpaw, because ‘she was some kind of a special mom’ and he loved her so much. I miss you, Mum, he wrote. I miss you.
The next morning was cold and dull and as he ate an egg which tasted strange and the toast which was too hard, he looked out of the window and hoped that the cloud cover was thick and deep again today and that Ed was kept safely on the ground.
He had not seen him since last weekend. The Americans had been confined to the air base all week but that didn’t matter. It only mattered that the aeroplanes had not roared off from the runway at dawn, flown by men with frightened eyes.
‘Eat up then,’ Laura urged him, coming round the table, looking into his face, her flowered apron stiff from the ironing. ‘Are you all right? You don’t look too good.’
Chris nodded. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
He heard the postman come and walked to the door, picking up his mother’s letter. He opened it and took out the postal order, putting it on the hall table but pushing the letter deep down into his pocket. He took his coat from the hook and left the cottage without saying goodbye, without seeing the geraniums along the path. There was no time.
He walked down the lane. The mist was thick and damp all around and the leaves lay sodden on the road through the village and smoke rose straight up from the chimneys because there was no wind. Jeeps came up and down the road, steering round him, clipping the verges so that grass became mud. Mary was waiting for him outside her cottage. He did not want her to come. He didn’t want her to see his eyes, or to see him beaten.
‘Stay here, Mary,’ he said, heaving his collar up round his neck but she wouldn’t. She trailed along after him and he was glad really because he liked her round face, her smile, her voice. His arms ached and he loosened his shoulders as Ed had told him to do. They were on the track now and it was muddy but he hadn’t worn boots because he wanted to be able to move fast. He stepped from the mud of the track to the grass which was firmer but water splashed up the back of his legs and he wished he was old enough to wear long trousers. He stopped and pulled up his socks. Mary stopped too.
‘It’s so damp, ain’t it?’ she said, pulling her coat round her.
In the copse it was quiet and they didn’t talk but edged along the path through the tangled undergrowth. Water dripped from the branches and leaves fell slowly, damply to the ground. The leaves were catching in his shoes and he ducked down, pulling out an oak leaf which had caught beneath his arch. His fingers were trembling and his arms still ached. He was angry with himself and with his fear. He stood up suddenly, hurrying now.
Mary followed and he whispered, ‘Stay here. For heaven’s sake. Stay here. It’s my fight.’
‘Oh no it ain’t. He’s a little snot and he deserves a bloody good hiding.’ She grinned and came along beside him now.
The clearing was just beyond the holly tree and they moved slowly forward but there was no one there. Chris stood, his fists clenched, ready but unsure now. He looked at Mary and then all around.
‘They’re late,’ Mary said. ‘They got lost in the mist or had another slice of toast for breakfast, greedy pigs.’ She walked over to the sawn logs which were piled near the edge of the clearing; brushed at some sawdust and some damp leaves and then sat, her chin in her hands.
Chris stood motionless. His head was still aching. He flexed his arms, then took off his coat, throwing it towards Mary. It didn’t reach her and he started to walk across but then they came, bursting from the woods, swinging glowing cans round and round their heads, holding on to the wire and Chris knew that inside the cans were sticks doused in paraffin because he had seen them do it before, but never near another boy. Round and round they whirred, burning brighter and brighter as the air entered the holes which Joe and the gang had pierced in the sides. They were surrounding him now and one boy rushed forward and Chris had to dodge the can, leaping back, fear high in his throat.
Mary was calling out, trying to get through but Len dropped out of the circle and grabbed her, his can hanging limp as he coiled the wire up round his hand.
Chris turned this way, that way, seeing the brightness of the cans, one coming close, and then another. One nearly hit him and he scrambled back but lost his footing and fell. There was laughter now. Loud mouths and the burning cans were all around and over his head and it was like the torches in Germany that he had watched with his father.
‘Daddy,’ he whispered and then he heard Joe call.
‘Don’t think we don’t know you took lessons from your Yank. We saw you, didn’t we? Been on your boat yet? No, because we’ve sunk it, haven’t we? Sunk it proper this time. You didn’t know, did you?’
Chris pushed himself up, crouching because the cans were still above him, still too close. If they hit him, the lid would fly open and the wood would burst out and he would burn.
He was dribbling, he knew he was dribbling because it was running down his chin but he wasn’t crying. They wouldn’t make him cry but he could hear Mary. She was. She was crying and shouting and he tried to crawl beneath the whirling cans to her but then the boys were spreading out and he was up again. He could smell the paraffin in the air, see the trail of black smoke and then there gripping two of the boys
was Ed, his face set and calm, his eyes hard and angry.
Chris spun round. There were two other Americans holding a boy each, gripping them by the collars so that their feet almost left the ground. They were chewing gum and smiled at Chris but their eyes were angry too. The cans lay on the ground, the leaves steaming from their heat. They would not burn now that the wind was not tearing through them. The boy who was holding Mary ran off into the darkness of the wood.
Joe was the only one left and he stood uncertainly between Ed and Chris.
Chris wiped his chin.
‘You OK, Chris Weber?’ Ed asked.
Chris nodded, waving Mary away.
‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll fight you, Joe. I’ll beat you and then you leave me alone.’
They fought then but Joe used his head to butt and his teeth to bite. Chris did not. He punched and then he flicked Joe’s feet from under him but Joe caught at his ankles and brought him down too, punching his ribs, his legs, biting his arm, butting his face. There was blood in his mouth but he could see Ed standing there, holding the two boys, watching closely, never speaking. Just watching.
Mary spoke though. He could hear her shouts, her groans, her cries.
‘Kill ’im.’
‘Oh Chris.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Stop it, Ed. Stop it.’
But Ed didn’t stop it. He watched as Chris fought, blood staining his cheek and he wanted to grab Joe and slap him because he was a bully and he was hurting the kid, like he’d been hurt when he’d broken his first horse in. His father hadn’t stopped that and afterwards Ed had been glad.
He watched as Chris tried the uppercut but from the ground. He made contact, and again, and then he was on top, his knees resting on Joe’s shoulders. Keeping his body on the ground, twisting his hair until the boy cried and told him to stop.
Ed let the others go then and didn’t watch as they ran through the woods. He nodded to Earl and Mario who loosened their grip on the other boys, letting them push away, and follow the others.
Somewhere Over England Page 22