Shrapnel

by Robert Swindells

‘Myra Shay. How many times did you fly her there?’

  ‘Three, including today.’

  ‘And what happened when you flew her – the first two times, I mean?’

  ‘Well, I had to send her over Manley’s fence. As if it was by accident.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, then a fellow I call the watchman came and picked up the plane and wound up the engine and sent her back over.’

  ‘Both times?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did this man – the watchman – do anything to the plane, besides wind the engine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the plane itself – was there anything different about it when you got it back?’

  ‘Not that I noticed.’

  ‘Did you examine her at all – look inside perhaps?’

  ‘No. My orders said not to.’

  ‘And then you brought the plane straight home, put her in the shed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then what?’

  I shrugged. ‘Then I waited for more orders. The last ones were on a lavatory door.’

  ‘A lavatory door.’ He’d been fiddling with his pipe. Now he put a match to it, puffed out balls of fragrant smoke. ‘What happened today, son?’

  I told him what had happened in the fog of Myra Shay. When I’d finished he sat silently smoking, gazing into the fire. Mum got up and went out to the kitchen. I sat staring at the carpet.

  Mum brought tea. Dad said, ‘Odd things happen in wartime, Gordon. We don’t always get to know about them, but I’m pretty sure the Government isn’t recruiting schoolboys as secret agents. Somebody recruited you, though, so perhaps I’m wrong.’ He sipped his tea, then continued, ‘Tell you what I want you to do. If any further orders arrive, even on lavatory doors, I want you to tell me before you carry them out.’ I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. ‘In return, I promise that your secret will be safe with your mother and me for as long as that remains possible. All right?’

  Had to be all right, didn’t it?

  FIFTY-ONE

  Two Policemen

  I HADN’T TOLD my parents the most important bit – that Linton Barker saw someone he thought was Raymond, and I might have seen him myself. That would have set the cat among the pigeons and no mistake.

  It was bad enough anyway. Mum kept giving me strange looks, and Dad hardly spoke to either of us. I wasn’t sure they believed me, which was a rotten feeling. I felt awful about having spilled the beans so easily too. An agent who cracks when his dad questions him isn’t likely to hold out long against the Gestapo.

  One good thing though – my parents knew Raymond had been a hero. When that bomb got him, he was on his country’s secret service. We could hold our heads up, like the parents of the late Michael Myers RN whose bike I now rode.

  On Sunday morning I gave the bike a thorough clean and polish. It was a hero’s bike, ridden by a hero’s brother. When a little voice in my head whispered, Yes, but what about yourself? I drowned it out with whistling.

  Monday morning was fogless, quite sunny for November. I was relieved nobody had come looking for the boy who’d fled Myra Shay on Saturday. The watchman couldn’t split on me, of course – he didn’t know me from Adam. And what we’d been doing, whatever it was, might be something and nothing anyway. Perhaps I’d hear no more about it.

  I was kidding myself. Why would my brother have me build and fly that expensive model for something and nothing? And who’d take the trouble to contact me in a variety of novel ways for the sake of a prank? Dad’s brooding silence ought to have told me he thought there was something serious behind it. But as I say, I was kidding myself.

  It all began to unravel that day in the middle of double maths. There was a clatter of boots on parquet and the door banged open, but it wasn’t Whitfield’s dreaded storm troopers. It was old Hinkley, and he had two policemen with him.

  FIFTY-TWO

  The Dock

  OH YES, IT was me they’d come for.

  ‘The officers would like a word with you, Price,’ said Hinkley. He led the way to his office and left me with them. I’d never cared for the old duffer, but I was sorry to see him go.

  ‘Sit down, lad.’ The senior officer nodded to the hard chair in front of the Head’s desk. The dock, we called it. A pupil who found himself sitting on that chair was nearly always in trouble, and if he found himself lying across it with his bum in the air, the trouble was a bit more serious. The officer settled himself in Hinkley’s leather swivel. His companion stood with his hands behind his back and his back to the window.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Grant, and this is Detective Sergeant Dinsdale. And you are Gordon Price, is that right?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘All right if we call you Gordon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Well, Gordon, you know why we’re here, don’t you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I think you do, lad. It’s about your model aeroplane.’

  ‘Which one?’ I asked. ‘I collect them.’

  Grant shook his head. ‘We’re not concerned with your solids, Gordon. It’s the Skymaster we’re interested in. The flying model.’

  ‘Flying model, sir?’ I put on a puzzled face.

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘But I haven’t got a flying model.’ It wasn’t a lie.

  The detective sighed. ‘We’ve checked with Carter’s, lad. You bought a Skymaster from them last month – the only one they had in stock.’

  ‘I lost it.’

  He nodded. ‘We know you lost it, Gordon, because we found it, in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘You found it?’ I faked a happy smile. ‘I’ll get it back then, will I?’

  ‘I don’t think so, lad. It was carrying a cargo. A very valuable cargo. We suspect it had carried similar loads before.’

  I didn’t need to act flabbergasted – I was. ‘Wh . . . what sort of cargo, sir?’ I stammered.

  Grant looked me in the eye. ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No, sir, and if I did I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Why not, Gordon? Why couldn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because it’s a secret, sir. A state secret. I can’t answer any more questions, I’m under orders.’

  ‘Under orders?’ Grant sighed again, leaned back in the chair and glanced across at his sergeant. ‘I think we’d better have the parents in, Sergeant Dinsdale – down at the Station.’ He looked at me. ‘We’d like you to come with us, Gordon – we’ll clear it with the headmaster. We need to ask you about these orders you’ve received, and it might be less . . . er . . . unsettling for you if your dad and mum are there.’ He stood up. ‘Shall we go?’

  FIFTY-THREE

  Not the Gestapo

  IT WAS MY first time in a police car. Sergeant Dinsdale drove. Inspector Grant sat in the back with me. I was trying to be brave. I won’t tell you anything, I thought. Not even if you torture me. Deep down though, I knew I would. I suppose I was pretty sure they wouldn’t torture me anyway, especially with my parents there.

  I was taken into a small room with no window. Mum and Dad were there, sitting on hard chairs in front of a wooden table. They looked awful. Mum had been crying. There was an empty chair.

  ‘Sit down please, Gordon,’ said the inspector. We were in a line: Mum then Dad then me. The two policemen sat behind the table.

  Dad touched my sleeve. ‘What’s been going on, son?’ he asked. ‘This aeroplane business . . .’

  ‘We’ll ask the questions, sir, if you wouldn’t mind.’ Dad sighed and sat back. Grant looked at me. ‘Now, Gordon, there’s nothing to be afraid of, we’re not the Gestapo.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘and I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Good.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘So – these orders you mentioned – who do they come from?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ He frowned. ‘Then who told you to build the p
lane?’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t tell you, it’s top secret.’

  ‘Gordon.’ Dad spoke sharply. ‘It isn’t top secret – it was Raymond.’ He looked at Grant. ‘His brother gave him money to buy the plane, Inspector.’

  ‘Dad!’ I gazed at him. ‘You said it was safe with you, my secret. You promised. Now you’re betraying Raymond. Betraying his trust.’

  ‘Gordon?’ The Inspector was looking at me. ‘What secret did your brother trust to you?’

  I looked at the floor. ‘Do I have to answer, sir?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m afraid you do, laddie. Crimes have been committed. Serious in peacetime, more so because of the war. What did your brother tell you, exactly?’

  ‘It . . . wasn’t crime, sir, it was work for the Government. Raymond was an agent. He was helping the Government get an army together. A secret army, to fight the enemy after the ordinary army has been defeated and the Germans are here in England.’

  Dad snorted. Grant looked at me.

  ‘And do you think that’ll happen, Gordon – an invasion, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir – it’s what my brother told me. I suppose we have to be ready in case it does.’

  Dad broke in. ‘The boy’s plane, Inspector – where does that fit in?’

  Grant sighed. ‘The Skymaster was used on three occasions to get industrial diamonds out of Manley’s bonded premises, sir.’ He gazed at Dad. ‘You’re an engineer, you don’t need me to tell you how essential such diamonds are to the war effort.’

  ‘And you’re saying . . . you think my lad – both my lads – have been involved in stealing industrial diamonds?’ Dad’s tone was incredulous.

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir,’ said the inspector, ‘though Gordon here obviously didn’t know what was happening, having been told a story by his older brother.’

  Mum burst into tears. Grant motioned to Sergeant Dinsdale, who helped her stand and steered her towards the door. Dad made to follow, but the inspector shook his head.

  ‘There’s more, Mr Price. It’s probably best your wife hears it a bit later on, from you.’

  Dad swallowed. ‘More? What can there be more? First we learn that our son is dead, then that he was a thief. What else is there, for pity’s sake?’

  Grant spoke softly. ‘We have reason to believe your son is alive, sir.’

  ‘What?’ Dad stared. ‘What’re you talking about, man? Raymond’s dead, they showed us his watch.’

  ‘I saw him, Dad,’ I burst out. ‘Last week, biking home late from Norman’s.’ I wanted it to be true, wanted it so much I didn’t think before I spoke.

  Dad turned on me. ‘You saw your brother and didn’t tell your mother and me? When you knew how we were grieving?’

  ‘I . . . I wasn’t sure,’ I stammered. ‘It was dark. Linton Barker thought he saw him weeks ago as well, driving a car, but it could all have been a mistake, I didn’t want to . . . you know . . . get Mum’s hopes up.’

  ‘Hopes?’ Dad laughed harshly. ‘If what we’ve heard here tonight is true, I’d rather he was dead.’ He turned to Grant. ‘Is that everything, Inspector, or do you have more revelations about my family? Perhaps my wife’s been signalling to U-boats?’

  I don’t remember much after Mum and the U-boats. I was frightened, tired, confused. I thought Dad was being serious and it must’ve been too much for my brain, because it switched itself off.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Rhinoceros

  THE INSPECTOR SENT me to join Mum and a policewoman in another room. I was given a mug of tea. I don’t suppose the Gestapo dishes out mugs of tea. Mum’s eyes were red but she’d stopped crying. She said something to me, I don’t know what, and I didn’t reply. There was a stain on the lino shaped like a rhinoceros. I stared at it, warming my hands on the mug.

  In the interview room, Dad was having to listen to stuff about Raymond that was even worse than what we’d heard. He broke it to Mum when Sergeant Dinsdale had driven us home. I’d gone straight to bed and out like a light, and neither of them ever told me. I picked it up bit by bit from things they said to each other: perhaps I was meant to.

  Raymond never worked for the Government. He wasn’t an agent, he was a spiv. In fact he was worse than a spiv. He was in a gang that stole scarce things, rationed things – petrol, tyres, cloth, industrial diamonds – and sold them on the black market. They pinched stuff like tea and sardines and silk stockings as well, and passed them to spivs who offered them on the street at outrageous prices. The gang carried guns, and at least one person had been shot by them.

  And that wasn’t the worst. The worst was, my brother and his friends – the chaps who don’t mess around – robbed the dead. In the blackout they’d hurry to places where people had been killed by bombs, and steal their identity cards and ration books. They took rings and watches and cash too, but what they wanted most was the cards and ration books, because with those they could swap identities, leaving their own cards on the bodies so the police would think they’d been killed. Inspector Grant told Dad he thought Raymond had swapped identities with a man called Stanton Lander, which is why the Army had stopped looking for him. We’d buried Lander with my brother’s watch on his wrist and my brother’s papers in his wallet. Raymond was alive and at large, only everybody thought his name was Stanton Lander.

  I know it’s a horrible thing to say, but I wasn’t glad my brother was alive. He’d told me wicked lies and made a criminal of me, pretending he was making me a hero. Pretending he was a hero.

  So no, I wasn’t glad, and I wondered if that meant I was as bad as him.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Kitten

  THEY DIDN’T SEND me to school next day, but I crept there on Wednesday in a blue funk, recalling Whitfield’s terrible indictment of the spiv. Parasite . . . black marketeer . . . stealing goods that belong to the whole nation . . . helping the enemy . . . a traitor. . . . the lowest of the low . . . sell his mother if he could get half a crown for her . . .

  I didn’t take the bike. It had been a hero’s bike – I wasn’t fit to clean it, let alone ride it.

  As it turned out, nothing much happened at school. Linton Barker asked what the police had wanted, and I lied. Well, lying’s nothing compared to the stuff I’d done already. I told him they’d found my model plane and I had to identify it. Daft story, but Linton believed it – goes to show nicotine rots the brain.

  I don’t know how much Hinkley knew, but he didn’t expel me or even send for me. None of the teachers said anything either. That was a relief, I can tell you. Not that this was the end of it – I knew there’d be the devil to pay when the police caught up with Raymond, which sooner or later they would. It’d be in the papers then, and I’d have to kill myself.

  If school wasn’t so bad, home was horrible. Dad just about managed to drag himself off to work every morning, but Mum moped and wept and finally took to her bed. Gran had to move across from Hastley to look after us all.

  I was scared stiff all the time, wondering how many years I’d get for stealing three lots of diamonds, and what prison would be like. I could hardly sleep at night for worrying about it. When I mentioned it to Gran she said, ‘They won’t send you to prison, sweetheart, you’re too young. And anyway they know you didn’t mean to steal – you were tricked into it by that useless brother of yours.’

  It’s funny, but even now I didn’t like to hear Raymond slandered. I hated him, but every evening when Dad put up my brother’s blackout boards, I found myself wondering where he was, what he was doing. I hoped he wasn’t shooting anybody, because they’d hang him if he was.

  I was missing Norman, but shame prevented my calling on the Robinsons. I’d have to avoid mentioning the nightmare my brother’s activities had plunged us into. Either that or tell them everything. I knew they’d be sympathetic if I did, but my parents would be mortified: those particular beans weren’t really mine to spill.

  November gave way to December. There hadn’t been a raid for wee
ks, but a few nights before Christmas there was a heavy one. It was a Thursday. Mum refused to get up to go to the shelter, so neither Dad nor Gran would go either. They made me go, so it was just me and the Andersons. It was a long night.

  No bombs fell anywhere near us, but something awful happened just the same. First assembly after the hols, Hinkley stood on the platform and told us about a pupil called Betty Farfield.

  The Farfields lived a few streets away from us. The night of the raid, Betty had gone with her mum, dad, sister and kitten to their shelter. At the height of the raid, the kitten panicked and leaped out. Before her parents knew what was happening, the girl went after it. She was crossing their lawn when a piece of shrapnel from our ack-ack struck her on the head. Her dad ran to her but she was dead.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Shrapnel

  AND THAT’S THE thing about war. Betty Farfield died, but the Germans didn’t kill her. Thousands were killed in training accidents, and civilians died of hunger and disease far away from any fighting. And then there were those like Betty’s parents and my mum, who didn’t actually die, but something inside them did, so that they were never the same afterwards. War is a sort of invisible shrapnel that rips through people’s lives. It hit me, but I was lucky – it didn’t find a vital spot and my wound healed, though not straight away.

  Not straight away. On Christmas Eve I wheeled Michael Myers’s bike all the way to Hastley like a sad Santa, and left it propped against his parents’ house with a note taped to the saddle:

  This is a hero’s bike: spivs keep off.

  Talk about cheesed off. The real Santa brought me a wizard kit to build a Dornier 17, but it failed to lift my spirits. And no – I don’t believe in him. How would he cope with barrage balloons? With shrapnel?

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Auld Lang Syne

  MY BROTHER CAME home on New Year’s Eve, but nobody sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’. It was ten o’clock, and a filthy night. The wind roared round the house, flinging ice flack at the windows. We didn’t plan to see the new year in, but Mum was downstairs for the first time in weeks, which is why I was still up.