Our Castle by the Sea

by Lucy Strange

0638 110540

  0557 180540

  0625 250540

  I had wondered if the MB had referred to my sister—Magda Bernadette. There was definitely something that she wasn’t telling me, but if she didn’t want to talk to me about it, how could I possibly find out what was going on?

  I made up my mind. I would have to be bolder, more direct. I would make my sister tell me the truth.

  I was on my way back towards the cliff path when I saw a man—a figure on the inland hill—walking right through the middle of one of Mr. White’s fields, heading away from the Castle. He was wearing a dark coat and hat. At first I thought it was Mr. White himself, but then I saw that the figure was taller, leaner, and his stride was swift and athletic. It wasn’t the farmer at all—it looked more like Michael Baron …

  It was Michael Baron.

  What was he doing up here? More to the point, what was he doing in the middle of Mr. White’s pea field? There was something odd and unsettling about the scene. Was it to do with the way Michael was walking? The pea plants were a sea of green under the gray storm light—the color of veins on a white wrist. They rippled like pond water as he passed quickly through them.

  I couldn’t let Michael Baron see me—he might tell his mother I was there. It was possible she had even sent him to look for us. I was about to make a dash for it down the cliff path, when he did something that made me stop and crouch down behind the bramble bush that bordered the field.

  Michael Baron was now running through the plants to the edge of the field. He stopped at the telegraph pole that carried the telephone wire up to the Castle from the Dover Road and then looked back over his shoulder. As I watched, he shinned up the first few feet of the pole and then clambered quickly all the way to the top, like a sailor monkeying his way up to the crow’s nest.

  What is he doing? My hands gripped the bramble branches in front of me, the thorns pricking into my fingers. When he reached the top of the pole, he took something out of his pocket and reached up towards the wire. The black cable suddenly dropped, swung down like a trapeze wire, and was lost in the hedgerow.

  Michael Baron had cut the telephone line.

  It felt as if the cliffs were shaking beneath my feet, but then I realized that it wasn’t the ground that was shaking—it was me.

  This wasn’t real life at all—how could it be? The dull pewter light made it all the more surreal: Clouds filled the whole sky now—brooding above me. Michael Baron made his way down from the telegraph pole and started striding back across the field. He’s coming this way, I thought, but there wasn’t time for me to run back to the cottage or the lighthouse—he would have seen me. The only thing I could do was hide myself more deeply in the hedge. I tucked down into a ball and burrowed backwards, feeling thorns digging into my back and neck. My folded-up legs were still shaking, and I had to put my scratched hands flat on the ground to stop myself from toppling over. I couldn’t see anything now except the patch of ground in front of me. I heard Michael approaching. A gull screamed overhead. There was a scuffling noise and then a thud as Michael climbed over the fence and jumped down just a few feet away from me. Then his footsteps went quickly towards the path, heading for the south cliff.

  I followed him.

  Looking back, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. I should have gone straight to the police station and told them what I had just seen: an act of sabotage. And what exactly did that make our headmistress’s son? A collaborator, a fifth columnist? These were words I had heard on the wireless or seen in the newspaper, but they were suddenly as real as the rock beneath my feet. This was an act that could only help the enemy. What else had he been doing? And where was he going now?

  Michael covered the ground quickly; he was a lot taller than me and his paces were longer than mine. At points I had to trot to keep him in sight, ducking behind bushes from time to time in case he turned around. When we got up to the barbed wire near Spooky Joe’s cottage—I stopped and stared. I could still see the neatly snipped ends where Michael had cut Mags free. How stupid I had been! Why would anyone go wandering over the clifftops so early in the morning with a pair of wire cutters in their pocket unless they were up to no good? Yet we hadn’t suspected a thing! I turned around, scanning the path and the clifftop for Michael’s figure, but he had completely vanished from sight.

  Up there on the south cliff, there were only two ways he could have vanished so quickly, and it was pretty unlikely that Michael Baron had spontaneously decided to throw himself off the cliff … So that left only one option. He must have taken the tunnel.

  Mags.

  It was then that I realized I must have left the torch at the Castle when I went back to check on it. I had never been up or down the tunnel without one. Under these circumstances—completely alone, chasing a criminal whom I knew to be armed with a sharp tool, and bathed in the odd light of the gathering clouds—I was frankly surprised that I was still managing to put one foot in front of the other. I approached the old lookout tower and the entrance to the tunnel. I squatted down. “You’d better be grateful for this, Mags,” I whispered under my breath. “I might be about to save your life.” Then I launched myself into the darkness.

  It was terrifying. A hellish helter-skelter through absolute darkness, like falling through a nightmare—squeezing and twisting, then slipping blindly while unknown things scratched my face and tore at my hair—down, down, down I fell, deeper into the earth. I may have been the one chasing, rather than being chased, but that didn’t make me feel any less like a helpless creature, like something’s prey. My feet and hands felt the change from loose soil to smooth chalk as I skidded from the upper burrow into the carved-out passage below. I slithered helplessly down a steep slope, and the blackness was suddenly diluted into a dull gray haze. The cave at last.

  There was no sign of Michael, but my sister was awake and sitting up at the very front of the cave, staring out through the skull’s left eyehole.

  “Mags!” I panted. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Petra—where on earth have you been?”

  “I had to go back to the lighthouse …”

  “But why did you—”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Mags—did Michael Baron come through here?”

  She stared at me.

  “Michael Baron! Have you seen him? I’ve just followed him from the lighthouse. He must have come down here. Mags—he’s the saboteur!”

  She blinked. “You’re insane, Petra,” she said after a stunned pause.

  “Mags! I’m serious—remember the wire cutters he had when he helped you get out of the barbed wire? I just watched him use those to cut the telephone line to the Castle!”

  “What? Why would he want to do that?”

  “I don’t know, Mags! To cut off the line to the Admiralty, I suppose—to buy time if German U-boats or landing craft are spotted from the lighthouse? It could be lots of different things, but it’s not exactly going to be for a nice reason, is it?” Then something else occurred to me—a flash of light. “MB!” I said.

  “What?”

  “Look!” I found the scrap of paper in my coat pocket and thrust it in front of her face. “This is what Spooky Joe was writing down that morning when we were spying on him.”

  Mags frowned. “I thought I’d lost—”

  “Well, I found it again,” I interrupted. “I don’t know what all the numbers mean yet but look, here at the top—MB—Michael Baron!”

  “MB could stand for anything, you idiot,” Mags spat. “It could stand for … motorboat or moonbeam or … mountain bear!”

  It was my turn to blink at her. “Why would anyone be making secret notes about mountain bears, Mags? At first I thought it might even have been you—Magda Bernadette, but then when I saw Michael—”

  “You thought what?”

  “Please, Mags! Listen! It must be Michael—it all fits together, don’t you see? He’s the one behind the sabotage, Mags. I bet it was him that cut the other
telephone lines and set the church hall on fire too!”

  “You’re wrong, Petra,” Mags said, her voice trembling with rage.

  Why wouldn’t she listen to me?

  “I’ve got to go straight to the police station,” I said. “Come with me, Mags—please.”

  She shook her head. She looked frightened, furious. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said. “I don’t believe a word of it. You need to stay here where you are safe, Petra. The whole point of coming to the cave was to protect us from being sent away. If you go to the police …”

  “This is more important than that, Mags. Can’t you see? This is about the war, the invasion!”

  I saw that her hands were shaking. What was wrong with her? What had happened to my sister—the fearless girl who fought the bullies, the hero who had sailed over to Dunkirk and saved the lives of our stranded soldiers? Through the eyeholes in the rock behind her, I could see dark storm clouds swelling and gathering fast. My sister’s eyes were just as angry.

  “It’s not about the invasion,” she snapped. “It’s about you being a ridiculous child with too much imagination. Don’t you dare go to the police with these stories about Michael.”

  In that one unguarded moment, I saw a flash of truth on her face. I took a step back from her, towards the lower section of the tunnel.

  “He was here, wasn’t he, Mags? Michael did come through here! Why are you lying to me? You’ve been lying to me for months—to all of us! You have to tell me, Mags—what’s going on?”

  My sister’s eyes were suddenly the same as the volcanic-gray irises that gloomed behind her head.

  I took another step back.

  “I said, stay here, Petra,” she growled.

  But I didn’t.

  The constable on duty at the desk was the same one who had come to search the lighthouse after Mutti’s tribunal—the one with the oily mustache.

  “I need to report an act of sabotage,” I said as soon as I got through the door. I leaned over the desk towards the policeman, breathing hard: “The telephone line to the lighthouse has been cut.”

  Oily looked at me. He made a note of what I had just said. “And when did this happen, miss?” he asked.

  “About half an hour ago. It’s very important,” I said. “It’s not just a normal telephone line; it was installed by the Admiralty, for emergencies.”

  Oily made a note of that too. “Did you see this happen?”

  “Yes, I did. And I saw who did it too—it was Michael Baron.”

  He put his pen down. “Michael Baron, the magistrate’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Oily looked at me very closely. “You live at the lighthouse, don’t you? One of the half-German girls. Your mum was locked up for being a traitor.”

  I looked at him hard. “No, she was interned for being an enemy alien. It’s a very different thing.”

  “And it was Mrs. Baron who locked her up, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “Mrs. Baron was one of the magistrates at the tribunal, but what’s that got to do with—”

  “It’s just a bit of a coincidence, that’s all,” Oily interrupted. “Seems to me that you might want to cause trouble for her—to get your own back or something?”

  “No!” I said. “I’m telling the truth! You have to tell Pinstripe—the detective, I mean—I don’t know his name—the one in the pin-striped suit. You have to tell him about it right away.” I fished the scrap of paper from my pocket. “Give him this, please. It’s vital evidence—look, MB!”

  Oily’s face was a pantomime of confusion. He shook his head. “Not sure I know who you mean by Pinstripe, miss, but I’ll pass on your ‘evidence’ if you really want me to.” He took the scrap of paper from me and put it on the desk without even looking at it; then he slicked down his mustache with a greasy thumb and forefinger. “But it would be more than my job’s worth to cause problems for the local magistrate. I’m sure you understand. I’m hardly going to risk my position on the word of a spiteful child.” He looked me up and down—my coat was covered with mud and chalk from the tunnel. “And a scruffy little devil at that. I think you’d better run along home, don’t you?” He stood up. “And you can take your tall tales with you.”

  I made my way to the cliff path, wary of being seen by Mrs. Baron or anyone else in the village who knew that I was supposed to have been evacuated that afternoon.

  I drove my fists down into my pockets and fought back the angry tears. The policeman hadn’t believed me. My own sister hadn’t believed me. She had taken Michael’s side—a traitor’s side—over mine. My feet moved heavily up the hill, weighed down by the feelings of misery and betrayal and fear. Fat raindrops started falling from the rain clouds that blistered the sky above. They spattered on my head and ran down the back of my neck. As I pulled up the collar of my coat, I realized I was going in the wrong direction for the tunnel. Quite instinctively, I was heading home to the Castle. As I trudged up the steepest part of the path and my home gradually emerged from the rainy haze, something else occurred to me: Perhaps, when I thought I had seen a dark figure reflected in the kitchen window that afternoon, it hadn’t been my imagination playing tricks on me after all. Perhaps it had been him lurking around the lighthouse, hiding behind the standing stones. “Yes,” I breathed. “Michael Baron.”

  And then I froze. It was as if, like some sort of medieval demon, I had conjured him up just by speaking his name.

  “Hello, Petra.”

  His voice was behind me.

  I turned. Michael Baron was standing on the upper part of the path that led from the south cliff. A shaft of cold white sunlight shot down through a crack in the storm clouds directly behind him so that I was looking up at his tall, grim silhouette. He was in the same dark coat and hat that he had been wearing when I saw him in the pea field, but now his clothes were smeared with dirt and chalk, just like mine. He had definitely been through the tunnel.

  “You’re supposed to be on your way to the wilds of Wales right now, aren’t you, Pet?”

  I stepped backwards as he came closer.

  “I saw what you did, Michael,” I said. “I saw you cut the telephone line to the lighthouse.”

  “Ah. I did wonder. I noticed that you were following me across the cliff. About as subtle as a purple elephant. You’d be a rubbish spy.”

  “It was sabotage.”

  He smiled. His green eyes had never looked so cruel. “Sabotage is a pretty stupid word to band about if you don’t actually understand what’s going on.”

  “I know perfectly well what’s going on.”

  “Do you? Hitler’s army will be here any day now. There is nothing we can do to stop him, and why would we even want to? It will be a glorious new beginning for England.”

  I can only imagine that my face looked as baffled as my brain was in that moment.

  “My father always said that what this country desperately needs is a ruler like Hitler—someone to bring back the discipline and wealth of the old empire. ‘Just look at their economy!’ Father used to say. So I looked, and eventually I understood. It’s about being strong and unsentimental.

  “All that rubbish the vicar was spouting in church about good and evil—as if the real world is that black and white! You’re cleverer than that, aren’t you, Pet? You can see the true way forward.” He took another step towards me.

  I stood my ground. “You cut the other phone lines too and started the fires in the village?” I had to know that it was him.

  “Necessary steps, I’m afraid. It’s just about removing obstacles …”

  “But why the Scout hut?” I didn’t understand.

  “The LDV had started stashing weapons there— shotguns and rifles. We couldn’t risk them being used when Hitler’s army arrives. Anyway—I’m pretty sure our own police wouldn’t have been too happy if they’d found out about it. You can’t have people like that taking the law into their
own hands.”

  “But it’s all right for people like you?”

  “Oh, little Pet,” Michael said, and a muscle twitched in his handsome jaw. “I’m getting rather bored of this. You clearly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  His withering tone made me feel like I was being ridiculous—childish and ignorant and ridiculous. But then I thought about my Mutti and the Rossis and all the terrible things that were happening at that very moment to innocent people all over Europe. I wasn’t clever enough to argue with Michael—I didn’t know anything about economies or empires—but I knew that his words made me feel sick. They stank.

  “The police know all about you,” I said. “I told them you cut the telephone line.” I didn’t mention the fact that the stupid oily policeman had refused to believe a word of it. “They’re probably coming for you right now.”

  “You’re bluffing,” he said, and he took another step closer. “Anyway, even if you have told the police, you haven’t got any proof. It’s just your word against mine, and who’s going to believe a scruffy little orphan over the son of the local magistrate?”

  “I’m not an orphan,” I shouted—I couldn’t stop myself—he was even closer now, and I shoved him backwards.

  Michael stumbled very slightly, and then laughed. “I’m disappointed in you, Pet.” His voice had become oddly light and playful. “You’re trying to ruin my beautiful plan, aren’t you?” Then, before I knew what was happening, he had grabbed me by the wrist. I yelped with pain, squirming as his hand crushed my bones.

  “Let go of me!” I screamed.

  “Just your word against mine, Pet,” he said again. “And if you can’t talk to the police because you’ve disappeared, so much the better.” He twisted my arm around, forcing me off the path towards the crumbling edge of the cliff. My shoes skidded helplessly on the wet ground. One foot shot forward, sending a shower of soil and chalk down into the dark crashing waves hundreds of feet below. I scrambled frantically, tearing up handfuls of wet turf with my free hand—“Michael, please—let me go!” He crouched behind me, careful not to get too close to the edge himself; then he twisted my arm again—and forced me, sliding and screaming, towards the cliff edge. All I could think about in that terrifying moment was the childhood game I used to play with Mags on the standing stones—when my sister would slash with her toy sword at the tentacles of sea monsters to set me free from their twisting grasp. But my big sister wasn’t here now.