by Lilian Harry
‘I’m not late back, am I? The trains were all on time for once.’
‘No, there’s no problem there.’ Andrew sat behind his desk and look gravely at the young pilot in front of him. ‘Sit down for a minute, Ben, and take off your cap. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.’
‘Bad news?’ Ben looked at the sheet of paper his Squadron Leader was holding. ‘Have I been posted to another squadron?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’ Andrew hesitated. He hated breaking news like this – it was even worse than when one of the pilots was killed. At least everyone knew about it then and didn’t have to be told in this horribly cold, formal way. ‘I’m afraid it’s news from home – your home, I mean.’ He stopped. Ben was on his feet, alarm creasing his face.
‘From home? What – who is it? Mum? Dad? Alexie? Jeanie? It’s not Hope, is it?’
Andrew didn’t know who all these people were. He had Ben’s particulars in front of him and knew there was a sister, but the other two girls’ names were unknown to him. He shook his head.
‘It’s none of those, Ben. It’s your brother Peter. He’s in the Navy, I understand.’
‘Yes.’ Ben sank down again on to the chair. His face was ashen and his cap was crumpled between his fingers. ‘He’s in the Far East, commanding a frigate.’ He met Andrew’s eyes. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m afraid the ship has gone down,’ Andrew said quietly. ‘There were a few survivors, picked up by the Japanese, but—’
‘But Peter won’t have been one of them,’ Ben said in a dull, flat tone. ‘He was in command. He’ll have been last to leave the ship. He probably went down with her.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘I know my brother.’ Ben sat staring at his cap for a few moments. Then he looked at Andrew again and said, ‘I ought to go home.’
‘Yes, you should. You can go tomorrow – take another twenty-four hours. After that, I’m afraid you’ll have to come back. We’re going to be pretty busy now, you know.’
‘I know. Could I go tonight? There’s a late train from Plymouth and I can probably hitch a lift or something from Southampton. Or walk, if I have to. The sooner I get there, the better. There’s only me and my sister in the country, you see.’
Andrew thought for a minute. ‘Yes, you can. I’ll drive you into Plymouth myself. Better still, do you have a driving licence? Take my car – we’ll scrounge some petrol from somewhere. You can be there in a few hours.’ He opened his drawer and took out a bunch of keys, removing one of them from the ring. ‘Here you are. You know which one it is, don’t you?’
‘Yes – the Morris 8.’ Ben looked at the key Andrew was offering him. ‘Sir, are you sure? You don’t even know if I’m a good driver.’
‘I know you’re a fine pilot,’ Andrew told him, ‘and that’s good enough for me. Get some food inside you before you go, and stop for a rest if you feel tired. And be back here without fail by eight on Tuesday morning, understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ben said, standing up and saluting. ‘Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed.’
He spun on his heel and hastened from the room. Andrew sat at his desk a moment longer, looking after him, and then sighed and closed the drawer.
The boy would be all the better for driving through the night to go back to his family. It would give him a sense of doing something, when in fact there was nothing to be done. It would be some comfort to all the family.
Like John and Olivia, he thought of all the other families up and down the land who would be in need of comfort that night.
‘Poor Ben,’ Alison said to May the next afternoon. ‘He had to turn round and go straight home again. Andrew lent him his car. I feel so sorry for him.’
‘He seemed a nice young chap,’ May said. ‘I liked him. I hope this won’t hit him too hard.’
The two young women were sitting in front of the range in the Prettyjohns’ kitchen, knitting gloves and balaclavas in Air Force blue wool. Mrs Prettyjohn had gone to the Women’s Institute meeting and Hughie was upstairs with the two men, playing Happy Families. Outside, the November mist was as chill and drear as it had been the day before, but indoors the logs burned brightly and the kitchen smelled, as it always did, of fresh bread and cooking. Alison felt wrapped around with warmth and friendship.
‘He’s the youngest of the family, so he told me,’ she remarked. ‘Two older brothers and a sister – all serving, of course. His poor mother must live in dread of this happening.’
‘Mum lost a brother in the last war,’ May said thoughtfully. ‘His name’s on the memorial cross, up at the corner. She never talks about him, but I reckon she missed him sorely. It’s always the parents us thinks of, isn’t it, not the brothers and sisters, but it must be a hard blow to them as well.’
‘Yes, it must.’ Alison had no brothers or sisters, but she had always wished she had, and even the thought of losing family members she had never actually possessed made her heart ache. ‘Andrew has a brother, but he’s much younger – only sixteen. Everyone was hoping the war would be over before he was old enough for service, but if it goes on for much longer, he’ll be in it too. Andrew’s mother’s dreading it – he seems so young, just a child still.’
‘’Tis a terrible thing,’ May said soberly, and they worked in silence for a while, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and the piping of Hughie’s voice, set against the deeper, rumbling tones of the two men, in the room above. After a while, May put down her knitting. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Mother’ll be back soon and us could all do with a cup of tea.’
‘And I’ll have to be going after that. It gets dark so early these afternoons.’ Alison looked at the calendar on the wall. ‘Do you realise it’s the fifth of November today? We ought to be having fireworks and bonfires out in the garden!’
‘Oh, I love fireworks.’ May was busy at the sink. ‘Father and my Uncle Ted used to buy one each every week as soon as the shop got them in, and bring them home. They’d buy a rocket one week or a Catherine wheel, or a squib, and us liddle tackers – me and my cousins, that is – would crowd round and look at them in the tin and imagine what they were going to be like when they were set off. It were nearly as good as on the night itself.’
‘Hughie’s never seen fireworks,’ Alison said wistfully. ‘I hope he’s not too old before we can have them again.’
May set the kettle on the top of the range. ‘I don’t reckon the children will enjoy them like we did though, do you? They’ve seen too many bombs. A few rockets or Roman candles aren’t going to seem much to them.’
Alison laid her knitting in her lap. ‘What a sad thought that is. I hope you’re wrong, May. And at least they’ll know they’re not meant to hurt people.’
May came and sat down again, to knit another row or two as they waited for the kettle to boil. ‘There be that. But, you know, I don’t reckon as children are going to be the same when all this is over. They’ll have seen and heard too much. If you ask me, even when the war’s finished and done with, it’ll still be going on in a way. In people’s minds, I mean. What it’s done to them, and the little ones, especially – that’s going to last for years.’
Alison looked at her. May’s round, pretty face was grave and the usually merry eyes solemn. For a moment, the warmth of the cottage seemed to recede, as if someone had opened a door and let in the dank November fog. And then the door did indeed open. A swirl of mist seemed to billow in before it was swiftly closed again, and Mrs Prettyjohn’s voice broke the spell.
‘My stars, ’tis a miserable afternoon and no mistake! ’Tis good to get in home, out of the cold. Have you got the kettle on, May? I’m parched for a cup of tea. We were going to have one at the hall, but us couldn’t get the boiler to work. I’m chilled right through to the bone.’ She came over to the fire and held her hands out to its warmth. ‘And how be you, Alison? You’m looking very serious, the pair of you. Not had words, I hope?’
‘As if we would!’ Alison sa
id, laughing. ‘No, we were just setting the world to rights as usual. And there was some bad news at the station yesterday. One of the pilots – Ben – had to go home suddenly because his brother had been killed.’ Her smile faded. ‘It’s upset us all rather.’
‘Oh, my dear.’ Mrs Prettyjohn turned at once and came over to lay her hand on Alison’s shoulder. ‘Oh, how sad. And there’s me prattling on about cups of tea and boilers, for all the world as if there was nothing worse than being a bit cold. I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to be.’ Alison wound the wool around her needles and stabbed them through the ball. May had made the tea as soon as her mother had come in, and was already pouring it into the cups. ‘I’ll have that and then I’ll go, I think. You’re right, it’s not very nice out now and I don’t want Hughie getting cold.’
They drank companionably together and then Alison took cups up to the two men and fetched a reluctant Hughie away from their game. She wrapped him up warmly in the winter coat her mother had made him, wound his scarf around his neck, and pulled on her own coat and gloves before stepping out into the lane.
There was no sound from the airfield; the fog made flying difficult and dangerous. One thing in its favour, Alison thought wryly. The darkness was almost complete, with only a faint glimmer from the leaden sky to help her along the way. With Hughie’s hand held firmly in her own, she hurried along the narrow lane.
Her hand was on the front gate leading into the tiny garden when a shadow detached itself from the bushes nearby and a voice spoke into the thick, murky silence.
‘You are home at last, Mrs Knight,’ said a voice in the clipped tones of someone speaking very correct English. ‘I have been waiting. Please may I come in and talk to you?’
Chapter Eleven
‘Stefan!’ she gasped after a moment of frightened bewilderment. ‘You nearly made me jump out of my skin. Whatever are you doing here?’
‘Waiting to speak to you.’ He moved a little closer and she instinctively backed away. ‘I apologise, Mrs Knight. I did not mean to frighten you. I thought you could see me.’
‘See you? It’s almost pitch dark.’ She fumbled for her door key. ‘You’d better come in so that I can draw the blackout curtain across.’ She drew Hughie in behind her and the three of them stood in the narrow hallway, uncomfortably close. Stefan Dabrowski came in last and closed the door, and Alison reached past to draw the curtain, brushing against him as she did so. Feeling even more uncomfortable, she turned on the light and moved away.
‘How long have you been waiting?’
‘I don’t know. Half an hour, perhaps. It doesn’t matter – I knew you would come back soon.’
‘Half an hour? You must be freezing! Look, you go into the front room and put a match to the fire and I’ll make you a cup of tea. Hughie, keep your coat on until the fire’s going, it’s cold in here.’
She went through to the kitchen. Hughie followed her, a little nervous of this tall stranger who had loomed so suddenly out of the darkness. Alison herself felt oddly uneasy. It’s just because he startled me, she thought. He’s perfectly all right – he’s one of Andrew’s pilots, he came to our party. All the same, there was something about him that bothered her slightly, and she wished that he had let her know he was coming. Accustomed though she was to the casual ways of airmen, she would have felt more comfortable meeting him on a more formal basis.
By the time she returned, the fire was burning and Stefan was lying back in an armchair, his eyes closed. She stood still for a moment and looked at him. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and his face was pale beneath the thick, blond hair. There was a bluish tinge to his eyelids, as though they were so delicate that the colour of his eyes showed through the skin, and his finely chiselled lips were compressed as though he were feeling pain somewhere deep inside.
Alison’s unease receded. She felt a deep compassion for this man, not much older than herself, who was so far from his own country yet fighting desperately to save it. Why he had come here this afternoon she had no idea, except that he was accepting an open invitation that had been made to all the pilots. And he had been waiting in the cold, and looked tired and unhappy. In that moment, her heart went out to him.
She put the tray down on a small table and at the sound he opened his eyes and sat up.
‘I am sorry. I think I must have dozed off.’
‘It’s all right.’ She sat down in the chair on the other side of the fireplace and began to take off Hughie’s coat and scarf. The room wasn’t properly warm yet, but as long as he was close to the fire he would be all right. She put the fireguard in front of the flames and tipped his wooden bricks on to the hearthrug for him to play with. ‘There’s tea there – drink it while it’s hot. I haven’t put any saccharin in, they’re in that little bottle.’
‘No, I like it as it is.’ He picked up the cup and sipped, closing his eyes again. ‘This is something I have learned to enjoy since I came to England. We don’t drink tea at home. We prefer coffee.’
‘Oh, I could make you some. It’s only Camp, but—’
He laughed. ‘No, no! Tea is good. I told you, I like it now. As for your Camp …’ he screwed up his nose ‘… that is nothing like coffee!’
‘I don’t like it much either,’ Alison confessed, smiling. ‘But it’s better than acorns. I’ve heard that’s what the Germans use.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The Germans.’ And he turned his face away and looked into the fire.
Alison waited for a moment and then said, ‘Have you had some bad news?’
Stefan did not reply at once. Then he turned back to her and said, ‘I have had no news. That’s the problem. There is no news. Sometimes I feel as if I am starving, just to hear a word or two from my family, to know if they are all right, but there’s nothing.’ His eyes looked into hers and she saw with a shock that they were blazing, as if a fire burned behind them. ‘Nothing! My father, my mother, my sisters, my aunts and cousins and nieces – nothing. I do not even know if they are still alive.’ He spoke the last words in a low voice so that Alison had to strain to hear them.
‘Oh, Stefan …’ she said at last, feeling how inadequate a response it was. She put out her hand and reached across in front of the fire towards him. ‘Stefan, I’m so sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.’
He nodded, but made no reply. His pale face was set and cold, only the bitter line of his mouth and the fire in his eyes betraying his torment. She tried to imagine what it must be like for him. How would she feel herself, exiled in a foreign country, away from Andrew and her parents and friends. Away from Hughie … Instinctively, she put her hand down to her son’s head and trembled as she felt his hair beneath her fingers.
‘Would you like to tell me about your family?’ she asked. ‘Or do you just want to sit here quietly?’
He didn’t answer directly. Instead, staring into the fire again, he said, ‘I was in the mess when Ben came in. He was so happy after his leave at home. And then Andrew took him into his office and told him about his brother. When he came out, he looked different. Older. It was all gone – the life, the joy, everything. Killed by this filthy war, as his brother was killed.’
‘It’s dreadful,’ Alison said, wishing that her words didn’t sound so inadequate. ‘I feel so sorry for his mother. She must be worrying all the time. I know what it’s like.’
He turned his face towards her again and his voice was bitter. ‘You do not know what it’s like,’ he said. ‘You have no idea what it’s like.’
Alison felt a little spurt of anger. ‘I think I do, as a matter of fact. I worry whenever Andrew is up. He had a bad crash two years ago, you know. He was very nearly killed. And I know what dangers you face, all of you, when you’re flying. I do know what it’s like.’
He snapped his fingers. ‘Oh yes, you know that. I didn’t mean to say that you didn’t understand worry. I’m sorry. I was speaking of my own family.’ He lay back again in the chair and let his eyelids clo
se over the burning eyes. ‘My mother doesn’t even know where I am. She has not heard from me since I left Poland. She doesn’t know if I am alive or dead, any more than I know whether she is still alive – or the rest of my family.’
Alison bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. No, you’re quite right – I don’t know what that’s like. But I think I can imagine it, a little.’ She glanced at him, lying there as if exhausted by his pain. ‘If you want to tell me about it, I’ll try to understand more,’ she said softly.
‘I know you will,’ he said. ‘I saw it in your eyes, on the night of the party.’
There was a short silence. The fire crackled and Hughie murmured to himself as he built his bricks into a castle. Stefan had switched on a table lamp when he came in and it cast a pool of soft light over his face. She felt a great wash of pity for him and for a brief moment felt that she caught a glimpse of the dark world that lay beyond those pale eyelids; the memories of events so terrible they had driven him from his home to fight for the survival of his country, events that must have been going on ever since, were still going on.
There was a sound at the front door. Alison heard it open and close again, and then Andrew’s voice in the passageway. Hughie jumped up, knocking his bricks to the floor with a clatter, and Stefan opened his eyes and sat up abruptly.
Andrew opened the door and came in, swinging his son into his arms.
‘Hello, darling! Foul afternoon out there.’ He saw Stefan and stopped. ‘Dabrowski – I didn’t know you were here. Dropped in for tea?’ He glanced at the tray. ‘Any left?’
‘It’s only just been made,’ Alison said, getting up to kiss him. She smiled down at the Pole, apologising silently for the interruption. ‘I’ll freshen up the pot. Are you ready for another cup, Stefan?’
‘No, thank you.’ He began to get up. ‘I should go. I didn’t mean to intrude.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Andrew said, pressing him back into the chair. ‘You’re welcome. Have another cup. Stay for supper. I don’t know what it’ll be, mind.’ He glanced at Alison. ‘Pot luck!’