by Lizzie Lane
‘She’s very attractive. I suppose you and she—’
‘Are friends. Just friends.’
Despite him cutting her short, Ruby was unrelenting. ‘Hasn’t she got a husband to provide for her?’
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the children were still playing with their game. He closed the door between the kitchen and the front room so their conversation could not be overheard.
‘Gilda’s husband is in some kind of labour camp in Germany. He was arrested for anti-Aryan propaganda. That means he dared to say something that the local Nazi party didn’t like. Being a Jew is also something they don’t like. More and more are disappearing into these camps. We’re not quite sure what happened to him. Gilda was advised to get out of the country. It was quite a traumatic experience. That’s all I can say.’
Ruby was inclined to press for more details, but sensed none would be forthcoming.
Suddenly the door behind them opened and Isaac was there, his hair awry, his cheeks rosy red. He was holding on to the dog’s collar.
‘Felix wants to go out. He won’t stop clawing the door and he keeps growling.’
Michael shook his head and looked at the dog. ‘Felix, you’ve only just come in.’
The dog’s ears were erect, his eyes unblinking and his head was turned back into the front room where the door led into the hall where the front door opened into the garden. Sharp canine teeth showed when he growled, eyes fixed on the door, his head twisted at an awkward angle.
Michael’s amiable expression disappeared. ‘Okay, Felix. I get it. There’s somebody outside.’
Leaving Ruby behind him, he went into the living room craning his neck in an effort to see out of the window to a frosted world cloaked in mist and the dying light of a winter’s afternoon.
Michael instructed Isaac to shut the dog in the kitchen. Stan Sweet had come in from the garden and was now sitting comfortably with a brandy clasped in his hand.
Michael explained the problem. ‘The dog’s upset. There’s somebody outside. Leave it to me.’
The sound of knocking at the door set the dog barking even more furiously than before. Once he was sure Felix was under control, Michael opened the hallway door and then the front door.
The girls stayed with their father and Mrs Hicks. It had not escaped their notice that their dad and the widow got on very well indeed. Up until the interruption from outside, they had been discussing the planting of spring beans, though judging by the look in their eyes, there was something more interesting than beans going on.
‘I expect that’s the vicar’s wife,’ said Bettina reassuringly. She seemed totally casual that she might have an intruder. ‘She collected for the poor before Christmas. Now she’ll shake her begging bowl and tell me it’s to help people make a new start away from whatever sins they’re guilty of. Either that or the reform of some obscure cannibals they’re inclined to turn vegetarian.’
It was hard not to smile at her comments, though all eyes stayed fixed on the front door. The sound of men’s voices preceded its reopening. A blast of cold air came in before Michael Dangerfield, followed by another figure in dark navy blue.
Michael was grinning broadly. ‘I’ve got a surprise, folks. Looks as though Santa Claus is a day late!’
Behind Michael, his face half hidden by his navy blue hat, was the freckled face and cheeky grin of Charlie Sweet.
He was home!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Stan Sweet sat next to his son, his eyes shining with a mixture of pride, relief and unshed tears. His hand had settled on his son’s shoulder the minute he’d sat down and there it had remained. It was as though he were afraid his son would disappear if he removed it. It would take more than a few minutes, a few hours or even a few days for him to believe that this was not an illusion and that the flesh-and-blood Charlie really was home.
At the sight of him, Ruby had dashed to retrieve the cake she’d made for this special day. She rushed over to the bakery, grabbing the old toffee tin in which she’d been keeping it. She also grabbed a cake stand – not the best one they owned, but the one nearest to hand. She was sure Charlie wouldn’t mind, after all, they hadn’t really expected him this quickly.
Her hostility to Michael Dangerfield now forgotten, she ran back to Mrs Hicks’s and placed the cake on the stand in the centre of the table. Once everyone had remarked how wonderful it looked, she cut the first slice which went, of course, to Charlie.
‘Merry Christmas, Charlie,’ she said as she passed him the plate.
Everyone else wished him the same.
‘And a Happy New Year,’ added Frances who was sitting on the floor, one arm clasped around his knee.
‘Let’s hope so,’ he said, tousling her hair as he always used to do before he’d gone away.
While everyone remarked how nice the cake tasted, Stan noted that his son had gained a maturity he hadn’t possessed before. He had the look of a man who had seen things he would never have seen stuck in a village all his life. Stan could guess how terrible some of those sights might have been. He’d seen enough himself in the last war.
The voice of Bettina Hicks interrupted his thoughts. ‘You must have a secret supply of sugar,’ she said to Ruby who almost choked on a mouthful of cake, but quickly collected herself.
She had told nobody of her secret cache and she wasn’t about to do so now.
‘I happened to have some honey from last year,’ she lied.
She saw Mary frown. ‘I thought we’d used it all.’
‘Not quite all,’ she said cheerfully.
‘I can taste the sherry in this cream,’ her father remarked. ‘Or is it brandy?’
‘Both,’ said Bettina Hicks who had supplied the cream for the mince pies and winked at him. ‘Alf also liked a tot of sherry or brandy when the occasion deserved it. His supply of liquor has remained intact since his death. He would approve of it being drunk on such an occasion as this.’
Charlie was a bit thinner than when he’d left, but his face had a healthy tan, the kind that comes from facing a variety of weather and wind.
Michael was keen to hear of his exploits. ‘So how was it?’
Charlie sighed before draining the last of the tea from his cup. ‘No picnic,’ Charlie said, looking up at him with a hint of pride. Despite the smart uniform, it was him, Charlie, who had been in the thick of it. As yet the war hadn’t come home to roost like it had in the South Atlantic. ‘And it’s not going to be. The enemy is well armed and determined. We’ve got one hell of a battle if we mean to win it.’
‘We have to win it. Those people are monsters.’
The speaker was Gilda who had been quietly moving around refilling cups and passing out plates of cake and mince pies.
Charlie looked up at her, remembered the dark-eyed girl he’d noticed at the village fete and blinked. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I haven’t long arrived from London.’
‘You must have come for a short visit. I’m sure I saw you at the village fete?’
She nodded. ‘Ah, yes. I was here on a visit before I decided to move down.’
Because English was not her first language, she spoke very precisely in order that she might be better understood.
Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘I thought so.’
Stan Sweet gave his son’s shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘You can’t imagine how it feels to see you home, my boy.’
Charlie’s smile lit up his face. ‘You can’t imagine how good it feels to be home.’
‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ asked Gilda. The look in her eyes closely resembled that in Charlie’s. Despite the make-up it seemed she was blushing.
Charlie would have preferred something stronger, but couldn’t say no to this beautiful woman. ‘Yes. Yes, please.’
Mary noticed her brother’s eyes following the dark-eyed beauty before he glanced at the children and took another sip of his tea.
Ruby tried to force another slice of cake on him. ‘Come on, Charlie. You need filling up.’
Charlie grinned. ‘You’re trying to make me fat.’
Everyone laughed.
Charlie looked at his family and the others gathered. Only Michael and his own father could possibly know how he was feeling at this moment in time. Something momentous had happened to him. He’d experienced a situation that somehow set him apart from them all. Nothing would ever be the same again.
‘Son,’ said Stan. ‘Son.’ He couldn’t stop saying the word. ‘When we heard about the sinking of your ship, well, I don’t mind saying, I damned that battleship Graf Spee and damned the captain and all of his men too. Especially the captain, the black-hearted—’
‘He wasn’t black-hearted, Dad,’ Charlie interrupted. ‘He was only doing his job, just like we were doing ours.’
Stan was visibly affronted. To his ears it had sounded as though his son was defending an enemy captain.
‘He was out to kill you!’ Frances piped up. She had snuggled herself up close to her cousin, gazing up at him fondly and hanging on his every word.
Stan Sweet looked at his son in amazement. He’d come close to death and he’d despaired at ever seeing him again. Yet he was standing up for the enemy.
Charlie put his arm around Frances’s shoulders and hugged her. ‘No. He was out to sink the food cargoes coming up from South America; beef from the Argentine and grain from Brazil. His orders were to sink our food ships so our people would be starved and we would have to surrender.’
‘Britain won’t surrender – will it?’
He looked up to respond to Gilda’s question. She was standing with the hot teapot hugged tightly to her chest. Her dark eyes were like liquid pools.
For a moment Charlie’s eyes fixed on her, flashing as though taking in her details and saving them to memory. Regardless of her marital status, he couldn’t help the sudden attraction.
‘Not as long as we don’t starve, and as long as me and my pals are willing to go out there and get those supplies, we’ll stand firm. I’m sure of it.’
Stan Sweet was only half listening, still mulling on what his son had said regarding the German captain. Had he heard right? Was his son defending the man?
‘As for the captain merely wanting to kill us,’ said Charlie, Frances smiling as he tapped her on the nose, ‘Captain Lansdorff wasn’t that kind of man. He was a decent man, obeying orders he didn’t necessarily approve of.’
‘You sound impressed,’ said Michael Dangerfield, his eyes narrowed and for once fixed on Charlie rather than on his sister, Mary.
‘He was a decent man,’ Charlie reiterated. ‘I would probably have taken the same view as you if there hadn’t been a mix-up when the boat went down. All the ordinary seamen were put into boats by the Germans and told to row towards the African coast. It was only the officers who were taken prisoner.
‘I was out cold and the medical officer was looking after me, so I ended up with the officers by mistake. No. I can’t say he was a bad man,’ said Charlie shaking his head. ‘It’s just the war. Just the bloody war!’
Mary started to protest about the deaths by drowning when the ship went down. Her father raised his hand from Charlie’s shoulder, a signal for her to be quiet.
‘Let Charlie have his say,’ he said steadily, his eyes on his son. ‘Go on, my son. Tell us all about it.’
Charlie nodded. Everyone stayed silent as he began his tale, recounting how his ship had been sunk by the Graf Spee off the Cape of Good Hope. He’d been one of the lucky ones, picked up by one of the Graf Spee’s support ships, eventually transferred on to the battleship herself.
Despite being well treated, Charlie and his pals had not liked the thought of being interned for the rest of the war.
The big turning point came on the 15th of December when the battleship was attacked by the Royal Navy. Having sustained damage, the Graf Spee steamed her way from the mouth of the River Plate where the battle had taken place and into Montevideo, Uruguay.
Charlie’s face lit up at the memory. ‘A neutral port. Under international law the captain had no option but to release us.’
‘I bet he hated doing that,’ spat Ruby who was sat next to the cake she had baked, her fingers clenched around the carving knife.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Charlie responded. ‘Not if what happened next is anything to go by. You see, he scuttled his ship rather than face the Royal Navy. All the prisoners were taken off and released, and all the crew except for a skeleton crew in charge of destroying the ship. I like to think he didn’t want more men to die – his or ours!’
Before calling an end to Boxing Day, the three men went out into the garden, two with cigarettes and one with his pipe.
They stood contemplatively, blowing smoke into the darkness and exchanging opinions about the likely progress of the war, whether the Yanks would get involved, whether the force sent into France would be strong enough to repel the enemy army.
‘No trenches this time,’ remarked Stan Sweet. ‘Certainly not on the Germans’ part anyway, judging by the way they invaded Poland and the like.’
Charlie remarked that he was glad he’d chosen to go to sea. ‘Despite losing my first ship.’
With a loud guffaw of laughter his father pointed out that it was the captain’s responsibility if a ship was lost.
‘Here’s hoping it won’t happen again,’ said Charlie.
Michael listened quietly, but said nothing as he thoughtfully sucked the smoke into his mouth before expelling it into the frosty night where it mingled with the steam of his breath.
He was thinking of Mary. He’d been stunned that morning. Seeing her again had only reaffirmed how he felt about her. He wanted to throw his arms around her; he wanted to kiss her, and much, much more. On the one hand it was early days in their relationship, but on the other these were desperate times. It was downright crazy asking her to marry him, but the idea had struck him without warning, and now it had struck, he couldn’t let it go. How crazy was that?
Suddenly he realised that Charlie was addressing him. ‘Fancy going to the pictures tomorrow – you know – the cinema? They’re reopened them and the girls might like the break.’
‘What? Oh, yeah. Sure.’
‘It’s only a bus ride. The Regent in Kingswood. We could get the late bus back. Might even find a fish and chip shop open if we’re lucky, though it’s a bit soon after Christmas.’
‘Yeah. That would be great,’ said Michael, thinking that his one Christmas wish might yet come true. It was an opportunity to be with Mary. It was also an opportunity to make amends for his cloddish behaviour at the Victoria Rooms and perhaps to get more intimate with her – if intimate was the right word. I’m not thinking getting fresh with her, he thought to himself, not with her brother and sister in tow.
‘Great,’ said Charlie sounding dead pleased that he’d thought of the idea. ‘I’ll pop back inside and see if Gilda would like to come, too. Seems to me she needs some cheering up.’
After he’d gone, Stan Sweet stood there silently, noticing everything but saying nothing. He had no doubt that Gilda would leap at the chance of a night out. He was also certain that Bettina would offer to look after the children and possibly also invite him over for another taste of her late husband’s liquor stock. He would not refuse. For the first time in years he was actually enjoying the company of a woman. They were both getting on. Two people who’d lived a long time and loved just once in their life.
Eyes narrowed, he sucked his pipe with great satisfaction. His children were still uninjured by war and Mary and Charlie at least were seeking happiness with another human being. He’d seen the way Mary looked at Michael and the way Charlie had looked at Gilda. Shame about all that make-up, though. The girl was good-looking without all that stuff. He wondered about her experiences in Europe and the exact situation with her husband. Somehow he couldn’t help thinking the worst.
‘Sir,’ sa
id Michael Dangerfield, suddenly interrupting his thoughts. ‘Do you mind if I court your daughter. Sir?’
Stan eyed the good-looking Canadian with a mix of admiration and sadness. He’d liked him on first sight and was convinced that his daughter liked him too, though very possibly it was much more than that, given the letter he had written. He was happy for her of course, but also saddened. It would soon be time for all his little birds to flee the nest.
Clenching the stem of his pipe in the corner of his mouth, Stan told Michael that as his daughter wasn’t far off twenty-one, he wouldn’t stand in her way.
‘Not that she’d take that much notice if I did,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘She’s like her mother in that regard: pleases herself no matter what I say.’
Content with each other’s company, they turned their gaze to the clear night sky, the full moon and the stars.
‘Lovely night. Cold but lovely,’ said Stan while thinking to himself that it would do his parsnips the world of good.
‘Yeah,’ said Michael, sounding more subdued. They called it a bomber’s moon; the crew could see the ground and the enemy, but the enemy could also see them. He hoped he wouldn’t have too many of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The film was Goodbye Mr Chips starring Robert Donat and Greer Garson.
Ruby declared at the very last minute that she wouldn’t be coming.
‘Why not?’ asked Mary.
‘Do I look like a gooseberry?’ Ruby was adamant. ‘Look, I can see you and the Canadian cook are getting lovey dovey with each other.’
‘We are not,’ Mary responded hotly, her face turning pink.
‘Then you should be,’ said Ruby. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Will you be all right?’
Ruby pouted. ‘Of course I will. Anyway, I’m in training.’
‘For what?’
‘To be a spinster. I’ve decided it will suit me very well.’
Mary tossed her head and sighed, thinking how exasperating her sister could be at times.
‘She’s staying behind for a reason,’ whispered Charlie, giving Mary a sharp nudge in the ribs while winking at their sister. ‘I can see it all now,’ he said, his voice spooky like some actor they’d seen in a ghost story at the Regent back in the summer. ‘Once we’re out of the way, she’s going to change into something lacy, ready to meet the tall handsome man that’s gonna come knocking the minute we’re out of the house.’