Dover Beach

by Leslie Thomas

  Sarah put her arm through Cartwright’s as they walked to the car in the lane. Carefully he asked her: ‘What time must you go?’

  ‘I don’t have to go at all,’ she said without looking at him. ‘I have my toothbrush with me. I think I’ll be staying. It’s an interesting place.’

  A low wind moved by night across the marsh, grumbling along lanes and ditches, sighing among roofs. There was a three-quarter moon, robed in clouds, that came and went across the window of their room, below the thatch. She lay close to him, his arm embracing her warmth. They were both awake. Sarah, almost submerged by the bedclothes, began a muffled giggle. ‘That landlord,’ she said. Her face appeared as a sheet of moonlight crossed the bed through the bare panes. ‘He said that if the air-raid warning sounded to put our heads under the pillows. Sounds like fun.’

  ‘It’s not in the air-raid precautions manuals,’ Cartwright agreed. He kissed her face. ‘But at present the Germans also seem to prefer their beds.’

  She turned close, her breasts moving against him. A cat began to yowl outside. They both laughed. Then she said quietly: ‘Again? Are you okay for again, darling?’

  ‘I am okay for again,’ he said folding her to him. She was wearing a slip and he felt the incitement of its silk against his naked groin.

  ‘I figured you might think I’m being greedy.’

  ‘I am greedy too. For you. I’ll be there soon.’

  ‘I’ll know.’ He moved into her; she drew in a sharp, deep breath and said: ‘You are.’

  They eased together under the moonbeams. The cat continued to howl throughout. He pulled the straps of the slip over her shoulders. Her breasts rose to meet his mouth. Their movements made sweat run on their bodies. When she reached her climax it was with a cry not unlike the cat’s. They lay, eyes shut, breathing against each other’s faces. The cat was wailing outside the window, its face against the glass. Dozily Sarah opened her eyes. ‘He’s on the window ledge,’ she said. ‘He’s looking in.’

  Cartwright saw the fluffed outline, the bright eyes staring into the room. ‘We’d better let him in,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘You’re naked.’

  ‘The cat won’t mind,’ he laughed. ‘But I’m sure he’d prefer you.’

  A touch primly she adjusted the straps of her slip and slid from the big bed. The cat stared at her through the glass. Sarah playfully put her face close so they were only an inch apart. The cat expected to be let in. The woman eased up the latch and opened the window. With a half-grunt, half-purr, the cat dropped into the room. ‘Now where?’ asked Sarah.

  The animal softly jumped on to the quilt. It padded up and down, allowed Sarah to return beneath the sheets and blankets, then sniffed casually at Cartwright before settling to slumber in the folds of the foot of the bed. ‘Seems like we’ve got a cat,’ said Sarah.

  The animal curled and dropped effortlessly into a deep, purring sleep. The lovers lay against each other. ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘was blind drunk when he was killed.’

  He said: ‘That worries you.’

  ‘He wasn’t like that,’ she said. ‘In the States I had never known him take a drink, maybe just at Christmas, and because he didn’t I didn’t either. But he was drunk when the taxi hit him. They said at the inquest.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Imagine coming to London and being killed by a cab in the blackout. He came over from the US before me and in weeks he had changed. It was like he’d thrown away everything he had believed in. God only knows why. He was a different guy.’

  ‘People become different,’ he said. ‘This war’s made them.’

  ‘I know he went with other women here. They weren’t even lovers, just pick-ups. He went to clubs in the West End,’ she said. ‘When I arrived it stopped him for a while, but then he began it again. It drove me crazy. Lies, double-crossing . . .’ Her voice had softened to a whisper. ‘And now I am here with you.’

  ‘It’s all that matters,’ he said.

  She put her fingers on his hair and kissed his neck. The cat began to snore. ‘I’m very glad,’ she said, ‘that we wrote our names in that old book in the church today. Whatever happens to us from now, just imagine, our names will be there together for years and years.’

  Chapter Seven

  EACH EVENING AS darkness came down over the Strait the war finished for the day. The long daylight hours of British Summer Time afforded enough time for battle. Sometimes a late enemy raider would drone across in the dusk but it would turn and be back in France by dark. British Hurricanes and Spitfires took their rest like boxers between rounds.

  There were sly movements by sea on both sides of the Channel and to the hazards of darkness were added the dangers of shoals and mines. Cargoes, some of them odd, continued to be moved. A British coaster was lost while transporting a hundred tons of cement, another with a cargo of pit props; a German barge was sunk loaded with cattle whose lowing gave away her position.

  But along the English southern coast there was always relief as another dangerous day drained away; meals were cooked and eaten, sentries posted, and wireless sets tuned in to the news followed by the evening comedy programme and dance music on the BBC. In Dover the theatre was unlit, but inside there were gas lamps and the shows went on, brightly optimistic and with an attempt at glamour; the three cinemas showed Hollywood films with a change of programme on Wednesdays. There was a dance in or around the town every night except Sunday.

  ‘One thing you can’t deny,’ said Tugwell profoundly, ‘Dover is loaded with crumpet.’

  ‘All shapes and sizes,’ agreed Sproston. ‘But all definite crumpet.’ They were polishing their boots. Boots had to be worn even to dances.

  ‘It’s no use moaning about how women look,’ said Tugwell. ‘There’s a war on.’

  ‘These Land Army girls are big,’ said Ardley.

  ‘Strong, like carthorses,’ said Jenkins.

  There was a bus to the darkened village and the dance. Servicemen did not need to buy a bus ticket. It was a shadowy straggle of houses but they located the hall easily by the blare of the band. An old man, chewing on a charred Woodbine, was collecting the sixpences at the door. They pushed back the thick blackout curtain and went expectantly into a cavern of smoke, heat and discord. ‘We’re late,’ said Tugwell. ‘There won’t be any kyfer left.’

  The band was doggedly attacking the new dance, ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’. It was a greatly popular song, frequently on the wireless and played on people’s pianos at home, promoting widespread sales of sheet music. The dancers revolved around the floor in an anticlockwise direction.

  ‘Let’s get to the bar,’ said Ardley. ‘Who’s got any money?’

  ‘I’ll buy you boys a drink.’ The voice was deep but softly female. Ardley, who was looking down towards his trouser pocket, took into his view a pair of corduroy leggings. His gaze travelled up to a green, comfortably crowded, woollen jumper, to a brown neck and a tanned, optimistic face framed by copper hair.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ he managed to mutter. He glanced at the surprised trio.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ they chorused.

  Tugwell added: ‘Ever so.’

  ‘Pints?’ she asked.

  The soldiers’ faces beamed. They nodded and mumbled. No one could think of anything to say to her but Ardley eventually came out with: ‘You look smart tonight.’

  ‘Women’s Land Army,’ she said as if they might not know. ‘WLA.’ She laughed. ‘We Lie Anywhere.’ The pints travelled across the bar. She finished: ‘But I don’t.’

  ‘People say brainless things,’ said Ardley. ‘Are you drinking?’

  ‘I’ve got a gin and orange,’ she said reaching for it. ‘There’s no tonic.’

  Then she said to Ardley: ‘Would you like to dance?’ He swallowed and almost choked. With a grin at the others he followed her on to the floor.

  ‘Well, Ardley’s a big bloke,’ said Sproston to Tugwell.

  ‘He’s that,’ said Tugwell. ‘They’ll f
it nicely.’

  It was a romantic waltz, ‘Moonlight and Roses’. Her big bosom lay against his battledress. ‘I was milking until half an hour ago,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have time to change. Anyway, nurses and ATS girls come in their uniforms. Why not the Land Army? We don’t all niff of pigs.’

  Ardley revolved her enjoyably. ‘I’ll say not.’ He sniffed at her cheek. ‘You smell good.’

  ‘Chickens,’ she laughed. ‘My friends are over there.’ She nodded to a collection of green jumpers in a corner by the band. ‘We’re up to our necks in animals and cow shit most of the day,’ she went on. ‘While you’re watching out for the Germans.’

  ‘That’s all we can do,’ he shrugged. He was conscious of her breasts rolling as he moved her. ‘Just watch, dig holes and pretend we’re blowing up bridges.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think Jerry will turn up,’ she said. She hummed the tune of ‘Moonlight and Roses’ and Ardley softly sang some of the words. ‘It doesn’t seem real, this war, does it?’ she said. ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘Buckingham,’ he said. ‘There’s a limerick about it.’

  She said: ‘I don’t live that far away from here. I work on the farm next to my father’s house. I came over on my horse. He’s a working horse. Lovely and big. Three evenings a week I go out with a couple of the other girls. We ride across country, patrolling. Looking out for German parachutists.’ She sighed regretfully. ‘We’ve never found any yet.’

  Ardley had his damp face adjacent to her rosy cheek. He closed them together. ‘What would you do if you captured these Jerry parachutists?’ he asked in her ear.

  ‘God help them,’ she whispered.

  He saw Sproston dancing with a girl with bare shoulders, holding a courteous handkerchief next to her skin. Tugwell was surveying the opportunities over his beer, his nose almost resting on the rim of the tankard. Jenkins was making the land-girls laugh.

  The band, called Kentish Fire under its leader Raymond Swing, was not very good, but they rallied and joined in the Gay Gordons, the Hokey-Cokey and ‘Underneath the Spreading Chestnut Tree’, the music almost drowned by the exuberance on the floor. Fuelled by Kentish beer the musicians attempted a paso doble but soon clattered into chaos and had to be halted by Raymond Swing.

  ‘He’s called Ernie Benbow really,’ Rose told Ardley as they stood aside. ‘I used to go to Sunday school with him. He pinched his name from that American who reports on the wireless, Raymond Gram Swing, is it? He even tries to speak like an American. I remember in Sunday school he wet himself.’

  He smiled at her. They had been together the entire evening. Her lips looked damp and her face flushed. ‘Can I take you home?’ he asked.

  She said: ‘I came on the horse, remember. I’ve got to go home on the horse.’

  ‘Is it far? Could I walk at the side?’

  ‘It’s not far, but enough. What time do you have to be back in camp?’

  ‘Midnight. Well, twenty-three fifty-nine. One minute before.’

  ‘You can ride on his back,’ she said.

  He laughed, then said: ‘All right, I’ll try. I’ll tell my mates.’

  ‘And I’ll tell mine. See you at the door.’

  Kentish Fire was fairly confidently playing the national anthem. Everyone stood to hushed attention, although some swayed with the beer. Once the final notes had staggered away there were some catcalls in the direction of the musicians and everyone made for the door.

  Ardley eased Rose out into the grey quiet night.

  ‘He’s around the back,’ she said. ‘You’re sure, are you? There’s no saddle.’

  ‘As long as the horse doesn’t mind. I’ve never been on one. The nearest thing was a donkey when I was a kid, and I wasn’t so heavy as now.’

  ‘He’s strong,’ she said. ‘He’s not one of these little trotters. He pulls a muck cart on the farm.’

  The backside of the horse made a rounded silhouette against the pale sky. He was standing against a fence and he snorted as she moved towards him. She whispered against his head: ‘We’ve got a guest tonight, Pomerse.’

  The animal half-turned its head. ‘I’m lighter than I look,’ said Ardley to the horse. He eyed its back. ‘Mind, I don’t know how I’m going to get up there.’

  The horse snorted and Rose snorted back at him. ‘He says he can manage,’ she said. ‘I’ll get aboard first and then you climb on the fence and get up that way.’

  She was going to ride bareback and she mounted in a single easy heave.

  ‘Stay put, Pomerse,’ she asked as the horse moved. She studied Ardley through the dimness. ‘Just climb up the fence and get your leg over,’ she said. ‘But don’t fall off the other side. He’ll think you’re larking about.’

  Sproston and Tugwell appeared like shadows. ‘The bus’ll soon be here,’ said Tugwell. Jenkins came out and began to waltz by himself.

  Ardley told them: ‘I’m going on this horse.’ He said to Rose: ‘I’ll be all right. As long as Pomerse is.’

  The others watched with amusement as he climbed carefully to the second rung of the fence and then eased himself ponderously across the horse’s back. The smell of the animal invaded his nostrils. He almost slid across the other flank but the horse moved obligingly to balance his weight. Rose half-turned and put her arms out to help him.

  He was fit enough. Drill and digging had achieved that. He became upright by degrees and put his arms around the young woman’s accommodating middle. ‘No galloping,’ he said. ‘Please.’ She gave a deep giggle which was echoed by the horse. Ardley hung on to her woollen waist, warm and reassuring. She spoke to the horse and turned it in the yard. They headed for the country road. Tugwell and Sproston waved doubtfully. Jenkins continued to waltz.

  Ardley was trying to keep in time with the regular bounce of the horse. His thighs were already hurting. He lay forward against the girl saying: ‘I feel much safer like this.’

  Although it was a pale night there was no moon. They plodded into the black shadows of trees. ‘How far is it?’ asked Ardley anxiously.

  ‘About another mile,’ she said. He could feel his spread legs aching. When they reached a roadside cottage and she said: ‘This is it,’ he could scarcely get off the horse. He slid sideways and his knees buckled as he reached the ground. She helped him to his feet. ‘I want you to meet my father,’ she said. ‘You’ve got time.’

  Two oil lamps glowed warmly in the low room. What appeared to be a very old man was sitting in the corner of the cottage clutching a knobbed stick, his eyes bright above it. Rose said: ‘Spatchcock, I’ve brought a soldier to see you.’ She whispered aside to Ardley: ‘He’s always called Spatchcock. He’s not as old as he pretends.’

  Narrow and fierce, the eyes moved sideways. ‘A soldier?’ It was like a groan. ‘On our side?’

  Ardley smiled weakly and gave half a bow. ‘I hope so, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I’m no sir,’ said the man. ‘I was only a private soldier.’ His face moved as if he were trying to remember.

  ‘Spatchcock was in the Boer War,’ said Rose. She said to her father: ‘Weren’t you.’ Ardley noticed a blackened hole in the ceiling as if a stove-pipe had once been there.

  ‘Spion Kop,’ said Spatchcock. ‘Them Boers was crafty. They wore khaki so we couldn’t see them. Cheating that is. That chief of theirs, Smutts was his name, we used to call him Smutty . . .’ His train of thought seemed to drift away. His eyes dimmed.

  ‘He’s on our side now,’ offered Ardley. ‘General Smutts. He’s the South African prime minister.’

  ‘I’ve got a gun,’ said the old man pointing. ‘It’s in the corner there. I’m ready for them Huns.’

  Rose was making a pot of tea. ‘And it’s going to stay in the corner,’ she said to Ardley. ‘He’s already fired the thing accidentally.’ She pointed to the hole in the ceiling, then poured the tea into three mugs. ‘Sugar?’ she asked Ardley.

  He nodded: ‘Two, please.’

  ‘It’s ration
ed, you know, sugar,’ said Spatchcock. ‘We’re all going to starve. Like the Hun wants. That Smutts on our side? And he was a Boer bugger. Next thing they’ll say the Germans are our friends. It don’t take long.’

  He took one of the mugs and sucked at the tea powerfully. ‘Now my father was in the Crimea,’ he said. ‘We been in wars all over the place but it ain’t got us anywhere.’ He cocked his ear. ‘That’s the last bus,’ he said.

  Rose put her hands to her mouth. ‘He’s right. It is.’ She hurried to the cottage door, opened it two inches and called out into the night, but then came back into the lamplight of the room.

  Spatchcock put his cup down and grinned wickedly over the top of his stick. ‘You can’t stop ’ere,’ he said to Ardley. ‘Not enough beds. Not unless you snuggle in with me.’

  ‘Thanks for the offer,’ said Ardley. ‘But I’ve got to get back to camp. Midnight.’

  Spatchcock remembered: ‘Twenty-three fifty-nine.’

  Rose touched Ardley on the arm. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to get you back. You’ve got an hour.’

  ‘You’ll be AWOL,’ said Spatchcock with satisfaction. ‘On a charge.’

  Ardley said: ‘I’ll run. It’s all downhill.’ He returned the touch on her green woollen pullover.

  ‘No, I’ll get old Pomerse back out. He won’t be asleep yet.’ She made for the door. ‘Finish your tea,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Pomerse won’t mind. I’ll let him lie in tomorrow.’

  Ardley said goodbye to Spatchcock. ‘Keep them Hun bastards away,’ said the old man knocking his stick on the floor. ‘That’s my advice. Stop ’em landing.’

  Ducking under the door the soldier went out into the empty lane. Rose was in the yard cajoling the horse, shoving him gently. Ardley waited as the two shapes came towards him in the dark. ‘He’s more or less happy,’ Rose said. ‘He was only dozing.’

  Ardley was so stiff that she had to lever him up on to the animal’s back. He groaned as he spread his legs. ‘I’ll have to report sick,’ he said. ‘The MO won’t believe me. Riding a horse.’ Eventually he was seated, straddling the warm rug of the animal’s back.