The Way to London

by Alix Rickloff

  She climbed up, flinching as she encountered the drift of a spiderweb.

  “It’s perfect,” Bill said, sweeping his torch back and forth to reveal low, cobwebbed eaves set with pegs upon which hung coils of rope and moldy bits of harness. Sacks of grain rested against one wall alongside a stack of mismatched lumber, obviously left over from a variety of jobs.

  “A veritable Shangri-la,” she grumbled.

  Bill curled up on a pile of old tarpaulins with his knapsack as a pillow. He gave a great sigh. “What a lark. The boys at the Lion won’t believe it. They’ll think I’m telling a bouncer.”

  “It’s like a story out of Warne’s Book of Adventure, all right.” She pulled an old boot from underneath her sore bum. “We’ll rest for a few hours, but that’s all. We need to be on our way if we’re to find a ride.”

  Rain drummed on the shingles above her head. Lucy counted her money. After two train tickets and meals, her small savings had dwindled. How was she ever going to stretch it to last until she’d hooked Mr. Oliver?

  Her stomach’s growling was her only answer.

  Well, that and a scurrying in the walls that left her rigid and smothering a scream.

  Rats.

  She should have bloody well known.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought to remain calm. Of course there were rats. She was sleeping in a damned shed in the middle of bloody nowhere. Had she once complained about the humdrum monotony of her life? If she had a smidgen of sense, she’d march right into that farmer’s kitchen, demand the use of a telephone, and be back at Nanreath Hall in two hours tucked up in her comfy bed, boredom be damned.

  She could just hear Sister Murphy’s gloating and Aunt Cynthia’s withering disapproval.

  Forcing herself to ignore the pitter-patter of rodent feet, she leaned back against a lumpy feed sack.

  No. She’d rather be boiled in oil than give up and go back and face those two. Instead, she took off her coat and tucked it around Bill, who curled asleep beside her. He flung an arm across her legs, nestling his head against her hip, his lashes fluttering as he dreamed.

  She closed her eyes.

  Ah well, she’d never claimed to possess a smidgen of sense and she certainly wasn’t bored now.

  Below the cliff-side nightclub, shimmering seas lapped at wide beaches fringed in ferns and thick groves of rain trees. A band played a sad, smoky jazz number. Amelia, stunning in a floor-length Vionnet gown of royal purple, vodka martini in her hand, sat among a group of sycophantic hangers-on. She laughed and tossed her auburn head, the emeralds and diamonds at her throat catching and refracting the light.

  “Bath caught it last night, poor buggers. Over four hundred dead.”

  The tropical air hummed with the steady whirr of cicadas, loud as fighter planes. Lucy stood at the edge of the dance floor, awkwardly gauche in her old school uniform, unnoticed by everyone while Amelia held court.

  “Heard one of them gun batteries was manned by the ATS. Shot a bomber down and everything. What do you think of that?”

  Her skin prickled and the hair lifted at the back of her neck. She left the party, following a set of wooden steps to the beach, where the soft rush of the waves was punctuated by the sudden air-raid-siren shriek of a macaw or cockatoo. Still, Amelia’s voice and the clink of glasses was caught on a monsoon breeze, thick and hot as a steam-filled bath.

  “Killing Jerries sure sounds more exciting than killing vermin. That’s a quarter of a sack gone to the filthy buggers, Stella. When’s the rat catcher due to arrive? The bloody things are eating us out of half our seed.”

  At the shoreline, sand oozed gritty between Lucy’s toes, and a cool wash of foam licked at her ankles. Golden glimmers flickered on the ocean, reflections from the strings of fairy lights decorating the club above her, where dancers clung to one another against the coming dawn.

  “Not until next Thursday. I could have joined the ATS, but me mum wanted me somewhere safe out of it. Join the Land Girls, Stella, she said. You might find yourself a nice handsome farmer, she said. Huh! I’d punch her in the nose if she was here.”

  Light speared the heavens to the east, the sky an opalescent rainbow of color. Lucy lifted her face to it, impatient and excited.

  “You go on. I can manage. I’ll grab what I need from the supply in the loft.”

  The sun burst from the sea, red and orange licking the horizon like flames. Lucy put up a hand against the blinding glare, blinking away tears. The band fell into a ragged silence. She spun away, but the nightclub, the cliff, Amelia, had all vanished. There was nothing left of the once-familiar landscape. A silhouette wavered in and out of focus as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Mother?” she whispered. “You promised.”

  “Crikey!” a shrill voice demanded. “Who the blazes are you?”

  Chapter 11

  A good thing it was me that caught you in Mr. Ennis’s machine shed.”

  Patsy Dean was a big-boned young woman with limp mousy hair under her brown felt WLA hat and regular no-nonsense features weathered by sun and wind. Lucy had known Land Girls around Nanreath, bold, plainspoken creatures rumored by the locals to be fast and immoral. Lucy had felt an immediate affinity. This one, though, looked anything but a kindred spirit. She eyed Lucy with obvious suspicion.

  “He doesn’t abide trespassers.”

  “We weren’t trespassing,” Bill piped up. “We were sleeping.”

  “To him, it’s one and the same. He nearly took a shot at a Yank officer scouting out sites for airfields last month.”

  “Why would you shoot at a Yank?” Bill said. “They’re a bunch of rum bluffers, and they’re always giving out sweets.”

  “It’s what they want in exchange that’s the problem,” Patsy said, swinging one last sack into the barrow by the barn door.

  Bill’s frown cleared in understanding. “Oh, you mean—”

  Lucy clapped a hand over his mouth as she threw him a deadly stare.

  “Well, come along back to the house,” Patsy offered. “There’s no sense in leaving before you’ve had a bite of breakfast. And we can dry those clothes of yours before you catch your death. Stella’s gone to the Coppages’ about borrowing an Allen scythe, but Judith will be finishing up with the cows and want a bite before she heads out to the lower meadow.”

  Breakfast sounded positive bliss, and their clothes were a bit clammy. She and Bill followed as Patsy gripped the barrow and headed back up the track, barely staggering under a weight that would have had Lucy on her knees. “I suppose you want to know what we were doing in your loft. We’re not spies if you’re wondering.”

  “If I thought that, I’d have taken a shot at you myself,” Patsy replied quite matter-of-factly.

  Bill squeezed in between them, his gaze wide and puppyish, his smile engaging. Even his half trot seemed intended to give an air of fresh-faced innocence. “My sister Lucy and me are going to visit our aunt. She’s feeling real poorly and needs us to nurse her. If we don’t, there’s no telling what might happen. She don’t have no other family but my sister Lucy and me.” He gave Lucy a broad wink.

  “Your aunt is fortunate to have someone to help her while she’s under the weather. Where does she live? Is it very far away?”

  “Miles and miles. That’s why my sister Lucy and me slept in your barn. But once we get there, it’ll be all right. You see, she lives in a big house with a hundred rooms and a fleet of motorcars, and a chuffer and a maid, even one of them butler gents what opens the doors.” He ended his tall tale with the flash of a grin. “Ain’t that right, sister Lucy?”

  “Couldn’t have explained it better myself,” she replied while praying for a stray bomb to put her out of her misery.

  Clearly incredulous, Patsy merely nodded and led them onward. Either she didn’t care enough to call them on their lies or she planned to lull them into a false sense of security and pounce when they least expected it. Hopefully, any potential ambush would wait until after breakfa
st.

  In the yard, a lean, long-jawed girl with her wispy blond hair tied in an oily scarf tinkered with an ancient tractor. She too wore the standard WLA uniform of coveralls and a scratchy green sweater, though hers was liberally grease stained and smelled like cow.

  “Fancy a cuppa, Judith?” Patsy asked, dropping her load by the barn door.

  “What I’d fancy is for Mr. Ennis to get back here with the gasket we need for this old bucket of bolts or it’ll be Wellington in harness to clear that lower meadow, and he’ll not last ten yards before he collapses in the traces.”

  “Ennis’ll turn up.”

  “Aye, but before or after he’s pissed away half a day in the pub?”

  “Don’t listen to Judith. Ennis isn’t that bad. He likes a pint now and again and he’s a bit gruff, but there are worse farms to be billeted on.” Patsy brought them into the house and up a narrow back stair to a cluttered room overlooking a long sloping field; the church tower they’d seen last night was off to the right beyond the trees. Three beds took up most of the space, but a wardrobe had been jammed in one sloping corner, a dressing table in another. “Most of the other girls stationed round here have quarters in old sheep barns or converted cider sheds. The three of us get this room and run of the kitchen as long as we cook for the old man too. Since his wife left him for an RAF lad from Newcastle, the poor chap’s been all but living on boiled eggs and toast.” She pulled a skirt and blouse from a chest of drawers. “Put this on and bring your wet things down to the stove to dry.” She sized Bill up. “There’s some old bits and pieces in the jumble bag we could make do for you. Come along. I want to hear more about your aunt. You say she lives in a great big house?”

  Before Lucy could advise or threaten, Bill scurried after Patsy, his high reedy voice spinning ever more elaborate and implausible yarns. By the time he came to the end of his story, they’d be the lost heirs to an empire, kidnapped by Gypsies and sold into slavery. As she wriggled into a skirt (too big) and a blouse (too tight), worry snaked its way up her spine and clenched at her stomach, but short of snatching Bill and making a break for it, there was nothing she could do. At one point during the burble of conversation, she heard Patsy laugh. Hopefully, that was a good sign.

  Back in the kitchen, she modeled her outfit for Patsy and Bill. “What do you think?”

  “Crikey, sis, you look a fright.” He was dressed in a pair of men’s overalls rolled at the ankles and an old fisherman’s sweater. He had his cards out, moving three of them back and forth and in and out in an elaborate dance she could barely follow.

  “Brat,” she said, giving him a playful cuff to the head before watching him switch and swap the cards on the table. “Three-card monte? Another game those boys at the Lion taught you?” She leveled him a stern glare.

  “Aye, miss,” he said, sliding the cards back into the deck and all of them into his pocket.

  If Patsy caught his slip of the tongue, she continued to keep silent as she poured hot water into a teapot to steep. “Lay your things by the stove there. They’ll be ready in a trice.”

  “Is that what I think it is?” Lucy peered into the skillet on the stove, every sense overtaken by the mind-altering aroma of frying bacon.

  Patsy grinned as she put toast on to brown and set a jar of blackberry jam on the table. “I knew that pig club would pay off. Ennis thought I was mad, but he’s as happy for a chop now and again as anybody.”

  Lucy nibbled an end as it singed her fingers. “Can one feel lust for a slice of pork belly? I think I would gladly let a chap have his way with me if he could promise me a ham dinner afterward.” Patsy nearly dropped a plate, while Bill smirked into his sleeve. “Did I say something amiss?” she asked innocently.

  “It’s hopeless. Bloody hopeless.” Judith banged into the kitchen, wiping her greasy hands on a rag. “There’s only so much I can do with bits of twine and the odd cannibalized bolt.”

  “Don’t get hysterical,” Patsy replied, recovered from Lucy’s remarks enough to shovel up eggs and bacon onto plates and set them at the table. “You know Ennis will find what he needs at that garage in Charbury. McKeegan has all sorts of salvaged bits and bobs.”

  Lucy nearly choked on her tea. Charbury—now she remembered why that name sounded familiar—a garage in Charbury. The pieces fell into place with a thud that dropped straight into her gut while the hair at the back of her neck prickled with something almost like anticipation.

  “Not to interrupt, but might you have a telephone?”

  Breakfast over, Judith and Patsy dumped their plates and mugs in the big stone sink on their way back to work.

  “Care to come along?” Patsy asked Bill, who was sliding a finger across his plate to lap up the last drop of bacon grease. “We’d be glad of an extra hand.”

  “Crikey, can I?” He leapt up from the table, nearly knocking over his chair. “That sounds brilliant.”

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re gadding about like a farmhand?” Lucy asked.

  “The washing up, I expect.” Patsy chucked a dishcloth at her on their way out the door.

  “Should have known bacon with my breakfast was too good to be true,” Lucy grumbled as she turned on the taps full blast and rolled up her sleeves.

  She fumed through the breakfast dishes, muttering under her breath as she scrubbed until her hands went pruny and the paltry few suds dissolved in the dingy gray water. But at the end of the hour, the drain board was full, and every plate, mug, bowl, and pan sparkled.

  Work worth doing was worth doing well. Wasn’t that the old chestnut? Now, where had she heard that? Certainly not her mother. Amelia and work would not have been mentioned in the same sentence, though if she wanted something, she stopped at nothing to achieve it. Did that count?

  By now, the damp clothes that Patsy had hung in front of the Aga to dry had crisped up nicely. Lucy pulled them stiff and warm off the rack, shaking each piece out before folding it for later. Her frock had come through without too much suffering, but Bill’s trousers had sprung a great leak in the backside. That wouldn’t do. A bit of shabbiness seemed to be de rigueur these days, but she drew the line at wearing actual rags.

  Upstairs in the girls’ bedroom, she found a sewing basket. The house was stuffy as the day grew warm and the small deep-set windows let in little light. She’d do much better outside in the bright morning sunshine, and it would be easier to keep an eye on the road. If all went to plan, it wouldn’t be long before the farm would be a dwindling dot out the rear window.

  Finding a corner of the yard upwind of the cowshed and not too close to the dung pile, she made herself comfortable on a low stone wall with needle and thread, watching Patsy drag large corrugated sheets of rusty metal from various outbuildings into the middle of the yard and dump them in a pile. Her face grew shiny and red with exertion, and at one point she discarded her sweater, but her breathing remained steady as she labored under her heavy awkward loads.

  Lucy finished mending Bill’s trousers and began on a pair of dungarees with a hole in the knee, then a skirt with a ripped hem and a blouse with three missing buttons.

  Patsy dropped a bundle of long metal poles onto the ground with a clang that echoed in Lucy’s ears for minutes afterward.

  “You do this—voluntarily?” Lucy asked after the ringing stopped.

  Patsy wiped her hands on her oil-streaked coveralls. “I grew up on a farm so I’m used to the hard work. Judith’s the same. Stella, now, she’s a town girl. Joined the WLA to get away from the bombs. Soft when she started, but you look at her now. Hands as callused as mine and a dab hand with the dairy cows.”

  “So, you think a few months here and you could turn me into a farmer?”

  Patsy paused to watch as Lucy stitched a popped seam on a pair of trousers. “Not sure if farming would be to your liking, but you’re right clever at the fiddly work.”

  “Being a very bad girl at St. Hildegarde’s School for Young Ladies meant becoming a very good seamstr
ess.” She bit off a thread.

  “Not that it’s any of my business, and you can tell me if I’m butting in where I shouldn’t”—Patsy cleared her throat, looking all at once self-conscious and almost embarrassed—“but it’s clear you and Bill aren’t brother and sister.”

  Lucy tried to pass off the allegation with a joke. “Really? What gave it away?”

  It seemed to work. Patsy’s grim countenance relaxed. “The boy’s got the gift of gab, I’ll give that to him. But when he started describing how he’s got the job of feeding the alligators that live in your esteemed aunt Dorothy’s moat, I had to stop him right there. Then I had to reassure him I had no intention of turning him over to the scabby beaks—his words, not mine—before he would agree to come back with me to the house.”

  “Bill seems to have a rather strong aversion to the police. If I had to guess, he’s had more than his share of run-ins with them over the years.”

  “So you’re not brother and sister and you’re certainly not WVS or Red Cross. So who are you? And if you’re not headed to a moated castle to wait on your sick aunt the duchess, where are you going?”

  “I’m nobody, really. Just someone who wanted to help Bill get home.” Lucy spread her palms across the surface of the soft workaday wool. “And maybe in the process, find one of my own.”

  Well, I’ll be damned.” Corporal Michael McKeegan emerged from an estate wagon, MCKEEGAN’S GARAGE stenciled on its wooden door panel. His blond hair was darker now, barring a few bleached streaks courtesy of the Singapore sun, but his lopsided choirboy smile still made her ache to throw something at him.

  She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

  Not that he needed to know that. He was confident enough without encouragement.

  “Lucy Stanhope?” he said, coming round to stare at her as if she were a phantasm.

  “Don’t gawp. It attracts flies.”

  He laughed, any lingering stiffness melting away. “It is you. Blimey, I almost thought it was a joke when my mum told me you called.”