‘Tanty’s comin’ ’ere this mornin’. Meeting up with Mr ’orrocks from the Civil Defence. They’re going to plan wiv the Major what to do next.’
We ate in companionable silence: I had known Maggs for three years, and felt very comfortable with her. She was like an amiable, criminal aunt. She was probably thinking the same as me. What comes next? And, How long can two children last out there on their own? At last I told her, ‘I found a load of cardboard and silver paper in their room. What was that for?’
‘Dieter’s doing the Romans at school. He made them both shields an’ swords an’ armour: so they could play.’
‘Ah. Where’s Les?’
‘Out already; walkin’ the shoreline. He said I wasn’t to get you fer that.’ Les never flinched from anything bad the whole time that I knew him.
I went up the narrow stair to the bedroom the boys usually shared in the pub. The bunks were squared away Bristol fashion; just like those in the prefab. I looked in their wardrobe, and their chest of drawers. Their clothes were all folded, or hanging – unnaturally neatly for boys. I’d have to have a word with Dieter about that, I thought – and then caught myself: I was no longer sure that I’d have that chance. Dieter’s school books were piled on a small desk beneath the window, with his pens and pencils. Almost as if he knew that he wouldn’t need them any more. Where was his school bag? He didn’t have a leather satchel like the other kids. He had one of my old RAF Small Packs, and he was very proud of it. The other things I couldn’t find were cardboard swords and armour. That was something.
Hope is a dreadful thing: it is like a distant lantern flickering in the dark – now you see it, now you don’t. I gave Maggs a brief peck as I left. The skin of her cheek was dry; an old lady’s skin. I hadn’t noticed that before.
‘Try not to worry, Maggs; we’ll need you as soon as we get them back.’ I didn’t tell her that I was going out on a long shot myself.
I don’t know why I chose Kate instead of the Singer, but I did, and she must have been worried about the boys too, because she crackled into life immediately. As I pulled away I saw Maggs’s face at the kitchen window. I smiled and waved. The hand she waved back to me with was holding a handkerchief. I turned back down the road to Chichester.
There was room for three cars in the small lay-by on the coast road where we stopped. I remembered the crooked footpath sign with the words Roman Road pointing off into the woods. The sun was shining, but the ground was still damp and steaming: there must have been a shower overnight. The road was like a track through the forest: mainly oak trees and ash. Cobbles and stones poked through the grass, and felt hard under my boots. My feet slipped a couple of times, and I struggled for balance. If you looked carefully you could see the ruts in the stones worn down by centuries of chariots and carts. I recalled from my school books that even now the gauge of our railways is determined by the width of a Roman chariot. The raised military agger roadway tailed off into overgrown ditches on either side. In places the ditch had nearly disappeared, but in others it was four feet deep in unfriendly brambles. I cheered up because I’ve always loved the smell of woods after rain, and, like I told you, hope had raised its hoary little head. As I struck north and up the old straight track I called out Dieter, and Carlo every hundred yards or so. Sometimes I carried on talking to them, as if they were with me. At first I felt foolish, but I wouldn’t feel foolish if I was right. Occasionally I heard small animals moving, or disturbed clattering birds.
After about four miles I thought that there was more light ahead of me. The woods seemed less dense. The road would eventually climb out onto the South Downs. Arundel Castle was probably miles off to my right – the east. I was thinking about that, and calling to the boys when I should have been looking where I was going. That’s why my foot slipped off an oddly prominent round stone, and I turned my ankle. I distinctly heard it click. It wasn’t a break, but it was something all right. I lost my balance and tumbled into the ditch and a clump of briars: real man-eaters. I probably began to shout before I came to rest.
‘Balls! Bollocks!’ My ankle hurt like hell when I tried to straighten myself and sit up, so I rolled onto my side. ‘Fucking bollocks!’
An animal moved in the wood not far from me. The Duke of Norfolk’s deer. Wasn’t someone chased for poaching those, in a Kipling poem? You think of the oddest things when you’re in pain; I’ve noticed that before. But it wasn’t a deer.
‘You swear too much, Papa,’ Dieter said from somewhere nearby.
At first I couldn’t say anything. Then I laughed. Could you have thought of anything better to do?
The boys stepped out onto the agger. Their cardboard swords looked very past their best; they were bent, but the shields and cardboard and silver paper breastplates had held up pretty well . . . and for two children who’d seen their second night out in the open they looked in pretty fair condition. Carlo threw away his sword and shield, and dived straight into the ditch to hug me. I kept trying to hold him clear of the brambles.
‘Mind,’ I said, ‘mind . . .’
Dieter lifted him clear, and then helped me roll on to my hands and knees and crawl up to the roadway. My right foot wasn’t much help. When we rolled my trouser leg up and my sock down, I could see the ankle was already swelling. Dieter squatted down and put a hand on my shoulder.
‘Can you walk, Papa?’
It probably wasn’t the time to remind him that I’d told him to call me Dad.
‘Probably. Let me get my breath back.’
Carlo asked, ‘Are you hurt?’
‘A little,’ I told him, ‘but I’m going to be all right now that you and Dieter are here to rescue me.’
He hugged me again, and that moved my leg, and sent fire into my brain. Dieter was studying my face, and smiled when I managed not to swear. It was a close-run thing though. I could see that he was thinking. Then he said, ‘Wait here; I won’t be long,’ and plunged back into the woods. I called, ‘Dieter. No . . .’ but he was gone, leaving his armour and shield on the road.
When he came back five minutes later he had a freshly cut stave with V arms at the top in one hand, and a clasp knife I had given him at Christmas in the other. I always knew that it would come in handy. In the meantime Carlo had told me that the game of Roman soldiers in the woods had gone on too long, and he was cold and hungry. He was probably pretty tired as well. I smiled, and put my arm around his thin shoulders. Dieter helped me to my feet, and put my new crutch under my arm. It pinched, but it worked, and that’s how we came back to Kate. Two small Roman soldiers, and a second-hand airman.
They told me about their two days, which appeared to be a cross between a make-believe game, an adventure and a bit of serious running away. It would take me some effort to sort it out.
It took us nearly two hours to make it. I was supported by the crutch on one side and Dieter on the other. Carlo held tightly onto Dieter’s free hand. At the end of it, although it’s hard to explain how, I felt as if we three knew each other better. Dieter slowed our pace momentarily as Kate came in sight.
‘Mrs Maggs can punish me, but must not smack Carly again. He is too small.’ It was the first time I had heard him use a personal diminutive.
‘She knows that now. I don’t think it will happen again. She was scared when he tipped the pot; it could have been full of hot water. She’s even more scared now.’
‘Last night I told Carly not to play in the kitchen again; that it can be dangerous. He understands now.’
‘Thanks, old man . . .’
‘We were coming back anyway. Nearly all the food was gone.’ He touched his school bag lightly. ‘We have only three cold sausages, and a piece of cheese left.’ For a moment I thought he was telling me I was a fool to have bothered. No. He was just a deep one; none deeper.
The odd thing was that tucked up in my new bed later that evening, with my ankle in a strap, watching Evelyn as we talked by firelight – and listening to the murmur of the boys from the ro
om next door – I felt as if after all the worry and excitement and pain, I had come out ahead. It was almost as if it had been worth it. She glanced in the direction of their voices, got up from the small armchair by the fire and said, ‘I’d better go then. Val’s coming down tonight. He says that he was sorry he missed all the fun.’
‘I’m not sorry. I didn’t miss it. Particularly the fun last night.’
She bent over, and kissed me. It was a nice soft kiss that said absolutely nothing. No other parts of our bodies touched.
‘See you soon?’
She did it again. After a pause she said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
I can’t stand these honest women, can you?
I’d always wondered what it was that triggered my dreams of being in Lancasters over Germany again. I worked it out later that night. The dream usually came after I had had a bad time, but was then safe. When I awoke the small fire in the bedroom was on its last legs, but still flickering. Dieter was standing in the doorway in those hideous striped flannel pyjamas we could never get away from, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his hands. He said, ‘You were shouting. It woke me. Carlo is still asleep.’
‘Sorry, Dieter. It was only a nightmare.’
‘Was it about Germany?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sometimes I dream about Germany too.’ As he turned away he added, ‘You don’t need to worry now, Papa, we will always be here to look after you.’
Then it was my turn to turn away, because there was a lump in my throat.
Chapter Eleven
Two days later Les drove me back to Lympne. As usual he drove my car too fast, and easily outran a police car that gonged us from a distance. It was just like old times.
Maggs had gone back to the junk shop, and found me a rattan cane – I have it still. My ankle was bound up, and only really hurt like hell if I let it bend under me. I had wanted to keep the crutch as a reminder, but Maggs claimed it, and hung it above the bar. She wanted it for a reminder as well.
All of the kites were out, but Berlin wasn’t on yet, despite Halton’s preparations and the screaming headlines from the newspapers. Perhaps the politicians would sort it out for once without anyone having to die. After I’d told the tale, Les chatted Elaine up. I’d seen Les in action before: he wasted no time once he’d made his mind up. Old Man Halton appeared from somewhere. I gave him back his wallet. He hardly acknowledged it. I also gave him an envelope that Dieter had asked me to pass on. The Old Man looked at it quizzically, and wrinkled his nose. That might have been a smile. He coughed, and asked, ‘From your son, you said?’
‘Yes. One of the runaways. He asked me to deliver it.’
It was addressed to Halton in a neat, boyish script; Dieter’s best handwriting. When the Old Man opened it, it contained a drawing which had been folded twice. The drawing was of a man recognizable as the Old Man himself; an equally recognizable civilianized Dakota sat on an airstrip in the background.
‘How did he do this?’
I glanced at it.
‘From a newspaper or magazine photograph probably. He keeps a scrapbook of anything to do with me, or the RAF. Someone must have told him I was working for you now, and he cut your picture from somewhere.’ What I didn’t tell him was that a different boy, in a different place, had once given a similar drawing to me – and I thought it had brought me luck.
The Old Man said, ‘Mm . . .’ as he turned away with the paper in his hand, and, ‘I told you to bring them down one weekend, didn’t I? Boys like aircraft.’
‘Yes you did, boss.’ The problem was that I was no longer sure that I did. ‘Thank you.’
Sometime weeks later, when I happened to be in his office, I noticed that Dieter’s picture had been framed, and was up on the wall alongside those Halton had commissioned and paid hundreds for. Dieter’s sketch hung alongside one of Milton by Cuthbert Orde; he would be pleased to know that.
Elaine drove Les down to the station to catch a train. I sat in the office, and waited for her. Brunton wasn’t there, but occasionally I could hear someone moving around close by – probably the Old Man – and there was a periodic clatter from the maintenance team, when they came into their domestic rooms to get their char.
Everything was curiously peaceful. There was a storm gathering, just like early 1939, but nobody wanted to face it. I made a cup of black stuff from the bottle of Camp on the table behind Elaine’s desk. Then I sat and read her Mirror, and found I was in for a treat. Jane was naked in all four of the windows of her comic strip. Maybe she was so tired of losing her clothes every day she couldn’t be bothered to put them on. I looked at Jane, and wondered if there was anything I could do about getting a proper girlfriend for once. Jane looked back at me; the message I got back from her was that I couldn’t.
The Old Man shuffled in preceded by his thunderous coughs. He dropped a folder of papers in front of me. It had a dog-eared card cover, not far off RAF blue.
‘Look through this, would you, Charlie. You might need to help Mr Brunton, and this is the quickest way to get you up to date.’
I suppose that I could have done the meek and loyal employee thing, nodded and kept my mouth shut, but that’s not me, is it?
‘What is it, boss?’
‘Correspondence; and pre-contract flimsies between us and Mr Attlee. He suddenly finds he might need a bigger air force than the one he has left.’
‘He doesn’t want us to help by dropping bombs on people again?’
‘No, just food. Food and fuel and clothes, and whatever else it needs to keep our bit of Berlin going.’
‘It’s on then?’
‘Not officially. They’re still trying to avoid it.’
‘I had a friend once: Pete. He was Polish. He said that the Russians were worse than Jerry. He hated Stalin more than he hated Hitler.’
The Old Man stifled another massive coughing fit with his handkerchief. I’d noticed that occasionally when he pulled the cloth away it was stained dark with flecks of blood. I wondered how long he could go on. He must have picked up on that, because he said, ‘Do you know the worst thing about my lungs, Charlie?’
I shook my head, and said, ‘No, boss,’ even though I didn’t want to know.
‘Can’t smoke. I used to love a cigarette, or a good cigar. If I did that now, the docs say, I’d be dead in a month. I really miss that. There are a hundred things like that I can hate the Hun for, and now it looks like I’m going to be the one feeding him. Funny, what?’
‘Ironic,’ I told him. ‘There’s nothing funny about it as far as I’m concerned: or if there is I don’t know who’s laughing.’
‘The Commies, Charlie, and I suppose we’ll all have to get used to that.’
I’d joined the CP myself, by accident, the year before. Not many people knew that. I wondered if Halton did, or if I should find a way of breaking it to him.
I was still in the papers when I heard the company car pull up outside. It was a ten-year-old Rover saloon on its last legs. We called it the Passion Wagon . . . that’s what most of the aircrew borrowed it for, and its saggy back seat had been battered into submission. You had to watch out for a vengeful spring or two. Elaine had been faster than I expected. She looked over my shoulder, and asked, ‘Where did you get those papers?’
I was just about finished anyway, so I closed the folder. ‘The Old Man asked me to read them. He said it would get me up to date.’
She looked out of the window, across the airfield. Pensive and sad. ‘Do you think we’re going to war again? I’m not sure that I could bear it.’
There had always been the suggestion that Elaine had lost someone very close to her in the war; it would have been surprising if she hadn’t – most of us did.
‘No. Not that kind of war, anyway. I think that we’re all too used up to slug it out again for another few years. It wouldn’t surprise me if my sons had to fight the Russians one day though.’
When she turned back she had softened.
‘Partly proud of themselves, and partly very ashamed . . . and more than a bit frightened when they found out just how many people had risked life and limb looking for them. The question of punishment did crop up – we’re big on punishment, we English, aren’t we?’
‘What’s going to happen to them?’
‘The Commodore of the Yacht Club came up with the suggestion that they be sentenced to clean and help on people’s yachts, for the next so many Saturdays. I accepted for them, and when I told the boys the smiles on their faces were like Christmas had come: I think that they’d wanted to get on those boats for months!’
‘So, all’s well that ends well?’
‘I suppose so. Over and out, for the time being, anyway.’
She sat on the edge of the desk and asked, ‘How old were you when you became a father, Charlie?’
‘First of all I was twenty-one, I think . . . but then I was never a father at all, really. They are other people’s kids. We became attached in the war, and never got unattached again.’
‘You’re their legal guardian?’
‘Not that either. I’ve signed some papers for the school and the council, but I don’t think that’s the same . . .’
‘You’ll have to sort that out properly. I think that you and I should have a long talk about them some time . . .’
‘Sorry, love.’ I reached out, and touched her leg as if I had her permission to do it. She stepped quickly away. ‘I only talk about that sort of thing in bed. What are we doing after work?’ To be honest that sounded crass, even to me.
It was her turn to say sorry.
‘Sorry, Charlie. This is Friday. My Terry will be home by seven.’
I did the two-can trick on the stove again; there was a pile of split birch logs outside. It was big enough to fuel the Queen Mary. This time I used a tin of corned beef, and a tin of processed peas. I still washed them down with beer. Then in the twilight I hobbled manfully around the peritrack, because the docs in Havant – the small hospital near Chichester – had told me to keep the ankle exercised. Down in the dip, and up against the hedge at the edge of the field, were five small aeroplane-shaped humps, each lashed down under a tarpaulin. You couldn’t see them from the admin buildings up on the ridge. In fact you’d have to be in the know to know they were there at all. I had a peek under one. It was a very nice late-mark Spit: hardly used. I had the feeling that I’d seen it before. A specific blasphemous word came to mind – one I’d been using too frequently recently.
The Hidden War Page 15