by Tim Jeal
When Andrea and Justin came in sight, they were smiling and swinging their arms. Justin was soon enthusing about ‘the amazing quarry we discovered’. His grief seemed forgotten. Peter could have hugged him. Andrea would not now accuse him of causing the boy lasting upset.
‘You missed seeing the ship sink,’ Leo told Justin, wondering why his mother was staring at him. ‘What’s wrong with saying that, mother?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied briskly, trying to convey that more bad news might make his friend rush off again. Leo wasn’t even convinced that Justin’s rapid exit had been genuine. He suspected a performance aimed at winning his mother’s sympathy. The way he was smiling at her now, she might almost be his own mum. She seemed to like it. When Justin tried hard with anyone, he usually got what he wanted.
In the car on the way to Trevean Barton Leo imagined himself back at school, telling Justin that he couldn’t come to Cornwall in the summer holidays. Justin begged, but Leo did not change his mind. This imaginary scene gave Leo pleasure, but also made him feel a little ashamed.
*
On Saturday morning Andrea went to the shops with Rose. The village grocer’s had two long mahogany counters: one for butter, ham, bacon and lard, the other for tea, coffee and porridge oats. Even in wartime every purchase was wrapped in white sugar paper and skilfully parcelled up by a boy who did nothing else. As Andrea and Rose were leaving, they were stopped by a grey-haired, beady-eyed woman whom Andrea recognised.
‘A little bird told me you did go and play to the children,’ said the vicar’s wife, smiling brightly at Andrea from behind pink-framed spectacles. ‘So kind of you.’
‘I enjoyed myself.’
‘Their teacher was delighted. But you’re a teacher yourself, I’m told. Perhaps you’d care to come along this evening to our little First Aid class in the village hall?’
‘I’ll try, Mrs Jefferies.’
‘Splendid.’ The vicar’s wife lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘There are know-it-alls who say it couldn’t matter less if villagers learn to tie tourniquets or not. It’s not like London, they say. Well, a bomb fell in Polruan last night and a man bled to death.’ Rose took a few steps towards the door. ‘I hope you’ll come too, Rose.’
‘I don’ know ’bout that, ma’am.’
Mrs Jefferies turned back to Andrea. ‘Some officers’ wives will be there. One came down from London this morning – a Mrs Harrington. Such a pretty woman. And only yesterday Mrs Henderson promised she’d … Are you all right, Mrs Pauling?’
Dizzy with shock, Andrea managed to ask, ‘Do naval wives live with their husbands when they’re on dry land?’
‘Some do; others would like to, but can’t.’
‘Is Mrs Harrington one of those?’
Mrs Jefferies’ face suddenly became bland and inscrutable. ‘If you come along, you can ask her yourself.’
‘Of course I can’t.’ Andrea was relieved to hear herself laughing very naturally. ‘I was only nosy because Mrs Harrington’s husband was very good to my son’s friend.’
Mrs Jefferies pursed her narrow lips and then relaxed them as if she had just applied lipstick. ‘In that case, there’s no harm in telling you the gossip. They separated, and now, rumour has it, she wants to be taken back. A happy story for once.’
As Andrea and Rose walked back to the house with their parcels, Rose muttered, ‘Thinks there’s nothin’ she don’ know, does Rector’s wife.’
Somehow, Andrea managed to conceal the misery she was feeling, though she hardly saw the Temperance Reading Room, or the rabbits hanging in the butcher’s shop. It was as if the glass shield of indifference that had kept her safe for years had finally been shattered. A man had thrust his hand through the glass and touched her.
As she walked, Andrea railed at romantic love for forcing her into a role she wouldn’t normally have looked at: the neglected wife craving affection from the brave but vulnerable fighting man. Her style was love against the grain. Love for the scientist whose views were nothing like her own. To fall for a man who shared her interests, and was handsome and clever, was to put social externals first – when the accepted wisdom, at least for intellectuals, was that only the primitive, the inarticulate and unsophisticated was authentic. Well, too bad. No gamekeeper, criminal, or jazz trumpeter would do; only Mike; intelligent, brave, and probably tragic, Mike.
And Peter had nagged him about tragedy! Andrea had once been told by her headmistress that ‘tragic’ was not a word to be used for describing sad or disastrous events in life, only those in art. To speak of accidental deaths as tragedies was to be guilty of ‘a vulgar solecism’. Maybe Mike would be amused, if he came back safely, and didn’t fling himself into his wife’s arms.
*
Even before she entered the village hall, Andrea could hear Mrs Jefferies’ thin, commanding voice, ‘Come and be splinted for a Colles fracture. Do I have a volunteer? Thank you. Over here, please.’
Andrea had imagined that the occasion would be a throwback to Edwardian days, with nobody being thought to be able to do anything unless the gentry were gracious enough to show them how. In fact the scene Andrea met was much more democratic. People of all classes were at work on one another without receiving instruction from anyone. The room echoed with curses as tourniquets were applied and fingernails pinched to see if blood flow had been stopped. Improvised splints were causing widespread discomfort as umbrellas and lumpy walking sticks were bound to ‘broken’ limbs.
Looking around for Mike’s wife, Andrea felt her heart accelerate. She still scarcely understood why she needed to see her, and yet she did. Andrea imagined she would be in her late twenties or early thirties, attractive, well-dressed. Two women looked possible candidates. If Sally was here, she would know her. But Sally had not come, and was not likely to, given her dislike of the vicar’s wife. Yet just as she was about to give up and leave, Andrea saw Miss Lawrence, the schoolmistress, and questioned her.
‘Mrs Harrington? She’s over there – the dark-haired woman with the doctor.’
‘He’s in the brown suit?’
‘That’s our Dr Lowther.’ Andrea was aware of a balding, pleasant looking man, but only for the brief moment before her eyes were drawn to the figure beside him. Mrs Harrington was not younger than she was, as Andrea had imagined, but older. She could easily have stepped from the pages of Tatler: the silver fox fur, the beautifully cut coat and stylish soft hat.
Miss Lawrence whispered, ‘Mrs Harrington came to our prize-giving with the commander.’
Mrs Jefferies bore down on them. For some reason she had a large ‘M’ written on her forehead in indelible pencil. ‘I’ve been given morphine,’ she explained, touching her brow, ‘so I mustn’t be given any more.’ She laughed quietly. ‘Moderation’s my motto. We’ll be breaking for tea and biscuits soon. You can meet Mrs Harrington then.’
‘Please don’t go to any trouble, I’m …’
But by now the doctor was coming in her direction, still talking to Mike’s wife. He said to Andrea, ‘You must be Sally’s American friend. I’m afraid I can’t remember your name. I’m John Lowther, by the way.’
After introductions had been made, and the doctor had promised the vicar’s wife that he would speak about burns after tea, Mrs Harrington, whose Christian name was Venetia, said, ‘If there’s one medical word I can’t stand, it’s crepitus.’
‘The condition’s worse than the word,’ suggested the doctor, smiling at Andrea, who did not know what it meant. As if suspecting this, he added, ‘There must be worse noises than the jarring of broken bones.’
‘Do you think so?’ laughed Andrea.
Venetia said in her low sweet voice, ‘Be honest, John, if a bomb fell on this village, wouldn’t these people run a mile rather than cope with the terrible injuries?’
‘I think they’d cope pretty well.’
Across the room, someone said, ‘Before giving artificial respiration to an unconscious man, you must pull out his tong
ue so he doesn’t swallow it.’
Mrs Harrington turned her heavy lidded eyes on Andrea. ‘So you’re a friend of the famously tactless Sally.’ Andrea could not help smiling. ‘Your wife is such good fun, John. I love Sal dearly, despite all her faux pas. She’s the one person who kept me sane last winter.’
‘Are you still down here a lot?’ asked Andrea, in terror of her reply, yet managing to sound only mildly interested.
‘Depends what you mean by a lot. I’m here now, as you see,’ said Mrs Harrington in a decisive tone that seemed to close the subject. Andrea tried to imagine her being loving to Mike and failed. Although the woman’s lips were full and soft and her eyes darkly expressive, there was a brittleness about her that seemed designed to keep people at arm’s length. Then, moments later, Venetia let slip something which Andrea had wanted to know. ‘Please get Sally to ring me, John. I’m not at Polwherne in the naval wifery, but staying in the new funk hole at Bonallack. She might find some of the guests amusing – a couple of BBC types, an American oil man, and me till Tuesday.’
‘Of course I’ll tell her,’ said the doctor, with a strained little smile which Venetia Harrington appeared not to notice.
When she had gone, John Lowther guided Andrea towards the tea urn. ‘Sally needs all the friends she can find at present.’
‘What’s happened?’
He looked away for a moment, towards three women practising resuscitation in a tangled heap near the tea urn; then he said quietly, ‘Just come and see her when you can. I can’t say more than that now.’
Andrea reached the door as Dr Lowther started to explain why medical experts were now saying that burns should not be smeared with jelly. Mrs Jefferies bustled up to her. ‘I do apologise, Mrs Pauling, but I quite forgot to ask whether you could play the organ for us on an important occasion. Our Miss Edgelow is getting too old to be reliable.’ Mrs Jefferies moved her face close to Andrea’s ear. ‘The navy retrieved the body of an RAF pilot this morning.’
Andrea shivered. ‘Was his name James?’
“James Hawnby. You knew him?’
‘Only by sight.’
‘My husband should have been the one to invite you to play at the funeral, but he’s down at the cottage hospital with a German survivor. Eighteen years old and both legs amputated.’
‘I’ll play,’ whispered Andrea before hurrying out, past the Sunday school books and chairs, into the village street.
CHAPTER 9
On Sunday morning – not long after telling Rose he wouldn’t go to chapel with her – Justin announced to Leo that he wanted to visit the creek from which the trawler had emerged.
‘We may find out why I saw fishing nets when I got on board.’
An easterly wind had been blowing all morning, so they were able to run all the way up river to the mouth of the creek without tacking. The tiller vibrated in Leo’s hand and the boat’s bow surged exhilaratingly. Justin had refused to reveal exactly what they would be looking for in the inlet but Leo had not made an issue of it. He was intensely curious to learn what his friend had found out, and didn’t intend to give him any excuse for keeping things to himself.
‘Your mum was jolly depressed this morning,’ said Justin, gazing not at Leo but at a man digging for lugworms on the riverbank. When Leo said nothing, Justin added, ‘It’s because Mike isn’t back.’
‘Why should she be worried? He’s only on a training exercise.’
‘She doesn’t believe that.’
‘How do you know?’ demanded Leo.
‘Because she drove down to the river early this morning.’
‘So?’
‘So she saw the trawlers weren’t there.’
‘Pull the jib across. It’ll fill better on the other side,’ said Leo, and waited until Justin had done this. ‘Mum happens to be depressed because she knew the pilot who died yesterday. She’s playing the organ at his funeral.’
Justin whistled softly. ‘If she isn’t worried about Mike she should be.’
‘You never say why.’
‘Don’t rush me.’
Since the tide was low, and still falling, they dispensed with their sails and started to row after entering the creek. Soon the inlet narrowed, dwindling within minutes to a thin central channel that twisted in serpentine-fashion between high mudbanks.
‘We should be keeping a lookout,’ said Justin.
‘For what?’
‘Clues, of course.’
Justin’s solemn expression annoyed Leo. He might almost be a commando, the way he was looking from side to side. On the shimmering mudbanks, numerous birds were feeding. Leo wished his father was here. He would note the colours and markings of lots of these birds so he could identify them later. One solitary white wader stood taller than the rest, and had a strange bill – long and yellow at the tip. There was no other bird like him, either among the gulls or ducks. Did birds ever feel lonely, Leo wondered. If they did, this tall white specimen certainly would, like being the only European in a Chinese town.
When the channel had become shallow enough for them to feel the bottom with the blades of their oars, Leo stopped rowing. ‘We’ll get stuck for hours if we go any further.’
‘Let’s leave the boat here and wade,’ said Justin.
‘We might sink up to our waists.’
‘Let’s test it.’ Justin stood and jabbed his oar down into the mud. He pulled it up and showed Leo several inches of mud on the blade.
‘It’s still going to be risky to wade,’ said Leo, thrusting down his own oar to see whether Justin’s experiment could be repeated. Finding it could, he rolled up his shorts and, grasping the boathook, slipped into the water. The mud on the oar had smelled like rotting leaf mould. He could feel this muck squishing about in his plimsolls as he waded to the bows to throw out the anchor.
As they splashed upstream, they were unnerved by the mournful calls of birds and the isolation of the creek. From time to time, Leo thrust the boathook into the mudbanks on either side. The pole always sank in about a foot or so. Both boys wondered how they could possibly cross the mud to reach the creek’s shoreline. Leo stopped wading.
‘How the hell did that trawler come in here?’
‘At high water. You saw it come out.’
Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘So it just chugged up here and chugged out again? Funny thing to do.’
Justin pointed to the thick oak woods. ‘They come here so nobody can see what they’re doing.’
‘Which is? Oh sorry …’ Leo pretended to peer through an invisible magnifying glass. ‘Got to find those clues.’ Justin stared ahead, ignoring him. Suddenly he let out a whoop.
‘Look!’
A fallen tree jutted out from the bank as far as the channel. They would be able to reach the shore by clambering along this bridge. High above the mud, balancing on the trunk, Leo pretended to stagger. ‘How’d you get me out if I went splat?’
‘I’d leave you to drown.’
They were soon on dry land, walking among oaks and hollies. ‘Okay,’ demanded Leo, ‘if the trawler came up here, why didn’t it fall over at low tide?’
‘They propped it on planks.’
‘Shouldn’t we find them?’
‘I’m looking.’
‘What else should I look for, clever clogs?’
Without speaking, Justin went down on his knees and pulled a used pot of grey paint from the undergrowth. He held it up like a lump of gold. ‘Fantastic!’
Leo wanted to fling it into the creek. Why would the navy go to the trouble of bringing a trawler here, just to paint it grey, when they could do that anywhere? If the solution was so bloody obvious, why couldn’t he see it?
‘Give me that,’ cried Justin, pulling the boathook out of Leo’s hand and beginning to poke and hack at the brambles.
Leo stalked ahead between the twisted trees that marked the margins of the creek. Here, the oaks were producing catkins earlier than those deep in the wood. Scientists noticed things like th
at. Justin might think he was observant, but he wasn’t at all. In the open again, Leo looked across the mud. The dinghy appeared to be exactly where they had left it – probably aground by now. If they spent too much time here, they’d be stuck for hours.
Leo walked along the belt of shingle at the edge of the creek. In front of him on the shore lay a stout piece of timber, about six feet long. Close by were a couple more. Whether they’d been washed up or tossed here by people, he had no idea; but something about their appearance made him stare. All of them had traces of mud at one end or the other. On two, there were splatters of blue paint as well as grey. The third merely had grey brush marks. Looking more carefully, Leo noticed a few spots of brown paint, too. These brown marks were less numerous. He turned. Behind him, Justin was looking at the planks, wide-eyed.
‘Blimey!’ gasped Justin. ‘We’ve found them. They’re what they prop the ships up with.’
Leo asked hesitantly, ‘Do they paint on these colours to make their ships look like fishing boats?’
‘They do, they do,’ shrieked Justin, capering about. ‘But you didn’t see blue and brown boats in Porthbeer harbour.’ Leo frowned in puzzlement. ‘Why didn’t you?’ roared Justin, circling Leo as if he was a totem pole.
‘Because …,’ faltered Leo.
‘Say it,’ shouted Justin. He picked up one of the props and brandished it.
Leo hung his head. ‘I suppose because blue and brown are fishing colours in Brittany.’
‘They cross the Channel looking like French fishing boats. That’s why I saw nets on board.’
Leo couldn’t bring himself to look at Justin. He’d been wrong all along and hadn’t kept his doubts to himself. In fact he’d deserved to be kept in the dark. A most unexpected sob broke from Justin and Leo began to babble apologies.
‘Stop!’ spluttered Justin. ‘They must go dressed as fishermen. That’s terrible! Don’t you see?’ Leo shook his head. ‘It’s their clothes, silly.’ Justin covered his face. ‘People without uniforms are shot as spies.’
‘He’s too clever to get caught,’ soothed Leo.