‘Molly,’ he sighed resignedly. ‘You’re lovely.’
His hands went to her still-illuminated bosom and she moved the lamp obligingly. ‘I get used to it as an usherette,’ she said. ‘Pointing a torch this way and that. I bet you’ve seen plenty like this.’
‘Not by the light of a bicycle lamp,’ he told her.
She giggled and placed his hands over her breasts. ‘Warm hands,’ she said. ‘Mine feel quite warm too.’ She lowered them and deftly undid the buttons on his fly.
She released the catch of her skirt and it dropped to the floor. She was a little plump around the middle and her white knickers glowed in the dark. ‘Take the lamp,’ she said. ‘If you’d like to see me.’
He turned the switch of the lamp and shone it on her.
She leaned and kissed him on the forehead. ‘You’re a gentleman,’ she said. ‘Just what I would expect. Pull them down . . . go on . . . pull them. I double dare you.’
Close as they were they could scarcely see each other’s faces, only the points of their eyes. They embraced with temporary gladness. ‘I could get really worked up about you,’ she said. ‘I’m not like you think. I wouldn’t say this to everybody. I don’t go with just any bloke. But you remind me of my dad.’
She moved towards the bed, climbing over her clothes on the floor. ‘My uniform,’ she said. ‘Better fold it. They like you to be smart to sell Walls.’ She glanced towards where he stood. ‘You’d better fold yours up too. You’ll be in trouble.’
They both did so with strange formality. Then she rolled on to the bed stretching her legs with a pleasant sigh. He looked down at her pale shape. Naked he climbed against her.
He lay alongside her and she enjoyably snuggled against him. He kissed her with tenderness. ‘I still feel guilty,’ he said.
‘About your wife?’
‘About you.’
She kissed his ear. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m going to enjoy it. And I’m getting paid.’ She eased her face away. ‘I suppose so anyway.’
‘Of course, Molly,’ he said.
‘I want you to pay me in National Savings stamps,’ she said firmly. ‘Or a savings certificate. You can get one for fifteen shillings, if you don’t think that’s too much.’
Instow laughed deeply. ‘I can’t get over you. Yes, it’s all right if that’s what you want.’
Molly said: ‘I do go on talking, don’t I.’ She put her plump arms about his neck and he stroked her comfortable breasts. ‘Let’s make a start,’ she suggested.
He could feel her in every sensual movement of her body from her rolling breasts to her opening and closing thighs. Their knees collided gently. At the end they clutched each other and then drew apart. ‘Not bad for somebody your age,’ she said.
They sat on the bed in the dim and anonymous room, their bodies cooling, now half-familiar. ‘There’s still some running water in the house,’ she said conversationally. ‘We could have a wash before we go.’ She leaned back, her breasts and her round face in dark profile. She held his hand. ‘I’m going to have a fag,’ she said. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘A pipe,’ said Instow.
‘Got it with you?’
‘The pouch is in my pocket.’
She found her cigarettes and a box of matches. ‘Why don’t you smoke your pipe?’ she suggested climbing back into the bed. ‘There’s no rules against it. Not here.’
Sliding from the bed he took the pipe from the pocket of his uniform coat. Molly lit her cigarette. ‘Is it loaded?’ she asked tapping it as he returned to the bed. ‘My dad always kept his loaded, as he put it.’
‘I did it before I came out,’ said Instow. He almost laughed at what was happening. He climbed on to the bed again and they sat naked against each other, their shoulders damp. ‘I can light it,’ she offered. ‘I used to once but I might be out of practice.’
She struck a match and held it to the bowl of the pipe. He put his hand across the bowl, puffed two puffs, and saw it was glowing. They sat in darkness and temporary contentment. ‘I loved my father,’ she said eventually.
‘I can tell.’
‘What sort is your tobacco?’
‘St Bruno.’
‘He used to smoke Digger Flake. My mother cleared off when I was eleven and, by her reckoning, old enough to look after myself. So my dad and me stayed together. I was like a housewife. I’d go to school, do the shopping on the way home, and keep the house for him – better than she ever did. Nobody thought it was strange. Where we lived in south London nobody took any notice, nobody reported you to the council and that. There was lots of unusual arrangements going on. But people minded their own business.’
‘Where is he now, your father?’
The end of the cigarette glowed as she drew in, then puffed. ‘In heaven. He’d better be, anyway. If he isn’t there’s been a mistake.’
She was still and for a while silent. ‘Me,’ she eventually said. ‘I thought he’d be there for always. So did he. But he got pneumonia and just pegged out. Two days after the war began. He was talking about joining the air force.’
She locked the door with care when they left and went down the front steps into the blacked-out street. ‘The old couple who lived here got evacuated and they lent me the key. I said I’d keep an eye on the place. It’ll probably collapse when they knock these other houses down.’
She turned on the doorstep and they kissed briefly like real lovers. ‘Back to my cave,’ she said.
‘What’s it like?’ They were walking down the cobbled hill. She switched the bicycle lamp on intermittently. Ahead was a faintly luminous segment of sea. All was silent.
‘It’s just a cave,’ she said. ‘With hundreds of people living in it, well, sleeping in it. Snoring and farting. Most of them are on bunks, up against the walls. And there’s lots of caves like it. It gets a bit niffy down there, damp and not much air and too many people. But it’s shelter and it’s safe and it’s cheap.’
‘Do they mind what time you get in?’
‘I get a few grumbles if I have to step over people when I come in, and a few sideways looks in the morning, but it’s mostly all right. They know I work at the Hipp so that’s a good excuse.’ She glanced at him in the darkness. ‘And I’m not out all the time. Don’t think that. Just now and again. Only if I like somebody.’
She put her arm in his and said: ‘Will you have any trouble with the guards and that?’
He patted her hand. ‘Nothing. I’ll probably go into my office. Sometimes I do if I can’t sleep. What about the savings certificate? I may not see you for a while.’
‘Next time,’ she said hugging his arm. ‘There’s no rush. You might think it’s a bit odd, but I’m saving up for my future.’
He thought he had ceased being surprised by her. Then she said: ‘What’s your name, by the way?’
‘Paul,’ he said. ‘Paul Instow.’
‘That’s posh. Sorry, I forgot to ask.’
He left her and watched her shadow walk up the short slope to the Trevanion Cave, then turned smiling, shaking his head, and went down towards the harbour. He had no trouble at the gates. There was always someone on duty in the Naval Movements office and he went up the stairs.
Inside, under the dim lights, there were three men bending over desks, but with no urgency. A jug of just-warm coffee was on a table and he poured himself a mug. He went to his desk and picked up a sheaf of orders. ‘One of them’s for you, sir,’ said a rating walking by with another wad of paper. ‘The one on top.’
‘For me?’ Instow could scarcely believe it. He used the tips of his fingers to pick up the order. He was to join the destroyer HMS Carnforth in Dover the following day.
The night duty officer wandered over. ‘Carnforth,’ he muttered. ‘First World War. She’s getting on.’
‘So am I,’ said Instow.
At this twenty-first century distance it seems highly bizarre that part of the German plans for invading the south coast of England was the lan
ding of eleven thousand horses; four thousand on the first day and the rest with the second wave of the attack. The British army had disposed of its horse transport before the war.
Like the conquering William, whose first objective, after getting his army ashore and winning the battle at Hastings, had been to capture meadows so that his soldiers’ horses could graze, the Germans’ attack plans in the summer of 1940 had mapped out for immediate occupation not only defensive redoubts, airfields and harbours, but also the lush pastures of Sussex and Kent.
Despite the dreaded and irresistible Panzer divisions of heavy tanks, the screaming squadrons of Stuka dive-bombers, and the powerful artillery at its disposal the German army had a long tradition of harnessing horses as transport for troops and haulage of heavy guns and equipment. There were also formations of bicycles.
At the start of September in Dover and the surrounding threatened countryside, ill-equipped and scarcely trained troops, some with only five rounds of rifle ammunition per man, awaited the massive assault which a Dover fortune-teller firmly forecast was only hours away. No one argued, not even the War Office, and confident of her own prediction she then boarded up her kiosk and left for Scotland.
The Home Guard now numbered a million men in disarray. Some were armed with the donated American rifles which had been preserved in thick grease since the end of the First World War. There were thoughts that these over-enthusiastic volunteers were a liability; they shot and killed or wounded more than two hundred motorists, some of them deaf, who failed to stop when ordered to do so at arbitrary roadblocks; there were also reservations about arming some men who might be criminals rather than patriots. A chief constable was shot dead in dubious circumstances. There were other civilian casualties. Lord North was killed while walking on his estate near Dover. He trod on a land-mine.
The English Channel tides would be suitable for an invasion for the first three weeks of September. The defenders of the British Isles declared themselves relieved to be alone without the handicap of uncertain allies. While they waited they indulged in football and cricket, public-bar brawls, church parades, houseyhousey and baffling manoeuvres. There was an unwarranted airy optimism. Each officer, and in effect every man, knew the national coded warning which would tell them that the invasion was imminent. It was only one word: Cromwell.
‘It’s “Cromwell”,’ confided Frank Cotton.
‘I know,’ Nancy said. ‘Everybody knows. The cleaners at the hospital know.’
When the telephone rang it was Cotton who picked it up. A hoarse male voice said: ‘Oliver.’
Cotton said: ‘Who’s Oliver?’
‘You know, the code word. The invasion. Oliver.’
‘Don’t you mean Cromwell?’
‘Oh, that’s right. Cromwell. Silly me.’
Cotton replaced the telephone wearily and said: ‘Christ.’
Nancy was studying him. ‘Was it Cromwell?’ she asked. She was gathering her nursing cloak and her bag for the hospital.
‘He meant Cromwell,’ sighed Cotton.
They regarded each other seriously. ‘They’ll be sending a car for me,’ he said. ‘We can drop you off.’
They moved towards each other and embraced tightly. ‘You be careful,’ said Nancy. ‘I don’t want to see it’s my husband they’re carrying in.’
Cotton grinned and kissed her. ‘I’m relying on the Home Guard.’
‘Thank God we’ve got a navy,’ said Nancy. She heard a sound in the lane. ‘It’s here,’ she said. ‘At least that’s worked according to plan.’
He buckled on the cumbersome revolver in its shiny holster, they put the lights out and suddenly both wondered if it might be the last time. They went out of the door with their arms around each other’s waists.
‘Looks like he’s on his way then, Hitler,’ said the police driver. ‘I don’t know what kept him.’
‘Seems like it,’ said Cotton. ‘Could we drop my wife at the hospital?’
The constable hesitated. ‘Against orders, sarge. No unauthorised passengers.’
‘I’m authorising it,’ said Cotton sharply and the man nodded. He began to drive.
‘Them parachutists will be dropping soon, I reckon. They come in all disguises, like fancy dress, so some bloke on the wireless said. They even come down disguised as nuns and bus conductors.’
‘Easy to recognise then,’ said Cotton. ‘A nun on the end of a parachute.’
Despite the fact that the Wolseley was clearly a police car and had a dimly lit sign on the roof saying so, they were stopped at roadblocks manned by Home Guards. ‘We’re going to the hospital, then the police station,’ said Cotton stiffly at the third block. ‘There’s an emergency on.’
‘Don’t we know it,’ said the thin sergeant with the long wet moustache who came to the window. A vacant-looking lad came to his side. ‘Trevor here saw your sign saying “Police” but he thought it said “Polish” because he don’t read very well. He reckoned you might be foreigners.’
‘The Poles are on our side,’ said Cotton heavily. He pointed to a large barrel standing on end at the side of the road. ‘What’s that?’
‘The vat? That’s petrol. Filled up fresh from Campbell’s garage in Deal. If you’d have been Germans we would have chucked that all over you and set you alight.’
They continued down the hill to the tranquil-looking town. ‘Those silly sods will set themselves alight,’ said Cotton nodding back to the Home Guard roadblock.
‘And petrol’s on ration,’ said the driver.
Nancy left the car at the hospital. She and Frank kissed each other’s cheeks. She watched the car as it drove away wondering what was going to happen that night. The medical director of the hospital had almost the whole staff already assembled in the lobby. Nancy crept in at the back.
‘We will be treating both Allied casualties and German casualties,’ said the senior doctor. ‘We will treat both equally. Except we’ll treat ours first.’
That September evening there was a tangible crackle of excitement, almost of exhilaration, along the English beaches, cliffs and coastal towns. Never had the Channel been watched so sharply and with so little to see. There was half a moon but it lit only the backs of indolent waves.
On land, uniforms moved in the darkness; the army shuffled to its prepared defences, the navy was aboard its ships and either at sea or ready to sail, pilots sat in their billets inland waiting for the call to their planes. The eager and often elderly eyes of the Home Guard peered from the slit holes of concrete pillboxes, many of them willing the Germans to come, daring them to try it. Just once.
Among the uniforms assembled as the light retreated were the green jerseys of the Dover Cub pack. They sat in an obedient circle in a church hall at the centre of which, on a stool too small to safely accommodate her backside, was Akela, their cheery leader, who in civilian life was Olive Parsons of the municipal library.
She looked up floridly but without consternation as the door to the hall sounded dramatically and in strode two police constables, trying to look businesslike, followed by Cotton who was in plain clothes.
The dozen small boys looked around expectantly and Olive clasped her hands to her blue-bloused bosom. ‘Oh, it’s only you. I rather thought it might be the Germans.’
‘We’re ready for them, Akela,’ said a boy with the yellow bands of a senior sixer on his sleeve.
‘They’ll head straight for here,’ forecast one of the policemen. ‘Objective number one.’
‘Right from the beach,’ said the other.
‘How exciting,’ breathed Olive unconvincingly.
‘They’ll think you’ve been signalling them. You’ve got enough light showing through that blackout curtain to attract the Waffen SS.’
‘Oh, really,’ said Olive spinning with surprising agility on the stool. She peered towards the sagging top of the old curtain. ‘I can see,’ she admitted. ‘I can see what you mean. It’s fallen down again. I keep pinning it up. The parish counc
il say they can’t replace it until the war’s over.’
Cotton moved from the door. ‘Akela,’ he said seriously, ‘I think you ought to send the lads home. Just for tonight it might be a good idea.’
‘Right,’ said Olive as if instantly obeying orders. She addressed the boys: ‘Pack,’ she giggled, ‘pack up.’
The Cubs rose and faced her expectantly. Three fingers on each boy went up in salute. ‘We’ll do our best,’ they recited. ‘We’ll dib, dib, dib. We’ll dob, dob, dob.’
As they made for the door Cotton asked: ‘Do they have far to go?’
‘Not at all,’ said Olive. ‘A few yards most of them. The Nazis won’t catch them.’
‘They’d have to move fast,’ said the senior sixer.
The policemen went out into the dim churchyard. Olive put out the lights in the hall. ‘There, now the invaders will not be able to find their way,’ she said confidently. ‘Goodnight, officers.’
The three policemen stood on the church path. ‘I wonder how Hitler would deal with Olive,’ said one.
‘Wouldn’t lay a finger on her,’ said the other. ‘If he’s wise.’
As he said it a loud, hollow and ominous clang came from the church bell tower.
The church door was an inch ajar. Inside, they found the bell-ringers standing in a circle, their ghostly shadows thrown up the ancient walls by a single oil lamp placed in the middle. They were staring up into the bell tower and scarcely more than glanced at the entering policemen.
‘Young Jamie is up there,’ said a heavy man Cotton recognised even in the dimness. ‘Jamie Ernshaw.’
Cotton left the talking to the constables. ‘What’s he doing up there?’
‘Checking on the bells. Cobwebs on them, I shouldn’t wonder. We just gave one a little pull.’
‘Don’t ring them any more before the order comes,’ said the policeman.
‘Until the parachutes begin to drop,’ said the man as if he knew the strategy by heart. The others in the circle nodded solemnly. To Cotton they looked strangely like the Cubs. The oil lamp trembled.
Dover Beach Page 17