by Nevil Shute
“I don’t know. Wait a minute while I try.”
He waited. Presently she came back to the telephone, and said, “It’s all on now. I tried the lights and the cooker too. It’s all working. We’ll be able to have a proper dinner tonight.”
He said, “I give the town full marks for that. They must have worked like the devil.”
She sighed. “It is good. We’ll be able to listen to the radio now, and find out what’s been going on.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Peter, I was just thinking. Didn’t you tell me that the Littlejohns cook on gas?”
“I think they do.”
“The gas isn’t on, is it?”
“I don’t suppose so, for a minute.”
“Would you like it if I asked them in for supper? I mean, if our cooker’s working and theirs isn’t? He’s done such a lot for us, the last few days.”
“I think that’s a very good idea. Have you ever met her?”
“No. I’ve seen her about once or twice. Sort of mousy.”
“Ask them round by all means. I’d like to have them.”
In the house the girl laid down the telephone and stood for a moment in thought. Then she went out of the front door and round to the next house. She rang the bell, waited for a time, and rang again.
Presently there were steps inside; the door was opened by a pale, faded little woman that Joan had seen in the next garden once or twice, from her bedroom window. She wore a coarse apron over her black dress; she had her sleeves rolled up, and her hands were red and swollen.
“It’s Mrs. Corbett, isn’t it?” she said. “This is nice, I’m sure.”
Joan said, “Good afternoon. I just came round to ask if Mr. Littlejohn and you would like to come to supper with us tonight. Our cooker’s just started working again — we cook on electricity. You use gas, don’t you?”
The little woman was flustered. “Ted wanted me to have one of them electric things when we come here first,” she said. “But we didn’t seem able to make it work right. We had the man in to see to it, but he couldn’t make it any different. Sometimes I’d put the kettle on for a cup o’ tea and come back in ten minutes, and it wasn’t on at all. Other times, it’ld be burning away and wasting all the afternoon, and nobody would ever know. I told Ted it was a fair worry to me, and he had it taken out and put in gas.”
“The gas isn’t on yet, is it?”
“No, my dear. Isn’t it a trial? I was just washing out the net curtains from the sitting room, because they had to come down, you see, because of the windows. And every drop of water to be boiled on the dining room fire.”
Joan commiserated. “It does make things difficult, Mrs. Littlejohn. But our cooker’s working again now, and I thought it would be so nice if you could come round with your husband, and we’d have a proper hot supper tonight.” She paused, and added with inspiration, “We could cook it together.”
The mousy little face displayed some animation. “Oh, my dear, that was a nice thought, I’m sure. I hadn’t nothing but a little tin of salmon to give Ted tonight, and I was that worried. Because he likes to have his supper hot, with his bottle of Guinness and his bit of cheese, dear.” She became suddenly flustered again. “Won’t you come inside, Mrs. Corbett? You mustn’t mind — the house is all upside down, with the windows and that. But come in and sit down, Mrs. Corbett, and let me make a cup of tea.”
Joan declined. “I want to go down to the shops, and see if I can get a joint. I believe I know where I could get a leg of lamb,” she said thoughtfully. “There’d be time to cook that, wouldn’t there? I wonder, would you mind keeping an eye on the baby for me, Mrs. Littlejohn, and I’ll go down and see what I can get. I won’t be very long.”
The little woman said, “It would be real nice to have the baby, Mrs. Corbett. I seen your family over the wall so many times. It must be lovely to have children like you’ve got.” She sighed faintly. “Three of them, and all.”
She raised her eyes to Joan. “I had a little baby once, but she died.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Mrs. Littlejohn said, “In the war it was, my dear. I was in service in a place at Hove, and Ted was in camp at Shoreham. In 1916 that was, my dear, after he’d been out and come back wounded.” She hesitated for a minute, and then she said, “He was that masterful, you wouldn’t think. And he had to go back to France before I really knew about the baby, but he got three days’ leave again, and we were married in Brighton. But the baby wasn’t like yours, my dear. She never put on any weight, and then she died. And they told me that I couldn’t have another, ever.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Joan. It would not hurt to let a dammed stream run for a few minutes.
The work-worn hands pleated a fold in the apron. “It don’t do to complain,” she said, “only I do think you’re ever so lucky to have such a lovely family, Mrs. Corbett. But I’ve been lucky, too. You wouldn’t know what a good husband I’ve got, and Ted’s got on so well in the building trade, you wouldn’t think. And now we’ve got this lovely house to live in, and the garden with the flowers, and all. And he wanted me to have servants, too, and we did have them once, but I like doing things my own way. So now the girl comes in mornings just to give me a help-out, doing the scrubbing up, and that.”
Joan put a sluice gate gently back into the stream. “Come along in and see the baby,” she said. “Then I’ll leave her with you while I go down and get the meat.”
They went and fetched the baby in its basket cot, and put it on the kitchen table by Mrs. Littlejohn’s wash tub. “My,” said the little woman, “hasn’t she got a pretty colour? She’s ever so like you.”
Joan left them together, and drove down into the town. From every hoarding now the red placards exhorted her to boil her water. “That’s all very well,” she muttered to herself rebelliously. “The electricity’s on now, so one can do it. But when you’ve got no electricity or gas, and precious little paraffin, it’s not so easy to go boiling everything over the dining room fire.”
In the dusk she called in at her husband’s office. “I came to see if you’d come home with me,” she said. “I’ve just been down to get a joint to cook for dinner. Mrs. Littlejohn’s going to help me.”
He eyed her quizzically. “What’s she like?”
“Like Amy, that old maid we had just after we got married. I like her — she’s a dear.”
He looked out of the window. “What’s the weather like?”
“It’s starting to rain a bit. We’d better put the car away.”
“Are we going to put it over the trench again tonight?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. What do you think?”
He got up from his desk, and tidied up his papers for the night. “If you ask me what I think,” he said, a little wearily, “I think that bloody trench ought to be deeper.”
“But do you think we’ll have another raid tonight?”
“I don’t know. They came before when it was raining.”
They went out of the office to the car. Over their heads the clouds hung low, in grey, wet wreaths. A solitary airplane flew over them at about two hundred feet, immediately beneath the clouds; there was no other aviation.
“The gas is a bit low,” he said as they got into the car. “We’d better stop and get some more.” But at three filling stations that they tried in turn there was no gas to be had.
“We were cleaned right out yesterday dinner time,” one garage hand told them. “The tank waggon’s coming, but it hasn’t come. There’s been a proper run on it.”
Corbett asked, “Why is that?”
“People going out into the country for the night, I suppose. Everybody seemed to want a fill up yesterday.”
Corbett drove back thoughtfully to his house. It was raining in earnest by the time they got there; in spite of that he changed into old clothes and went and dug in his trench. At the end of an hour he had got down to six feet, which he judged deep enough; the bottom of it was a
sticky mess of mud and water. Finally he drove the car over it again and went back to the house, hoping very much that he would not have to use it in the night.
Mr. Littlejohn arrived as he was finishing. “Coming on real dirty again,” he remarked, looking at the weather. “You’d say they wouldn’t come tonight. But then, it seems all topsy turvy. Last night I thought that they’d have come, and they never.”
He mused a little. “Not so many airplanes about tonight.”
“It’s early yet,” said Corbett. “And it’s a filthy night for flying.”
The builder grunted. “That may put our chaps off,” he said, a little sourly. “It didn’t seem to stop them bombers.”
They went into the house. “I was talking to the Deputy City Engineer today,” said Mr. Littlejohn. “They reckon over two hundred bombs fell in the roads. They haven’t half had a job.”
“They’ve done very well,” said Corbett.
“Ay,” said the builder. “Wonderfully well, they’ve done. Over two hundred holes to be filled, and mains repaired, and that.” He was silent for a minute. “Still, come to think of it, it’s what you might expect. In poor parts where the houses stand up close without much garden, if you take me, nearly thirty per cent of the surface must be roads. So with a thousand bombs dropped all over, it’s only what they had a right to expect.”
Corbett laughed shortly. “I bet they didn’t expect a thousand bombs,” he said.
They sat down to a supper of roast lamb, tinned vegetables, and Guinness which Mr. Littlejohn brought from his house. “Mrs. Corbett doesn’t never have no trouble with her electric cooker, Ted,” the little woman said wistfully. “It cooked the joint a fair treat.”
“Like to change back again?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s ever so clean and nice, but I like something you can see.”
They talked about the holidays that they were going to take that summer. “We always go on the boat,” said Joan. “This year, we thought of having a change. We’ve been thinking of taking a tent with us in the car, and going to Scotland.”
“Brighton,” said Mr. Littlejohn comfortably. “That’s where we go. First fortnight in August, every year the same.”
Joan turned to his wife. “It must be fun, that,” she said sympathetically.
“It’s ever so lovely, Mrs. Corbett,” she replied. “It’s where I met Ted, in the war — I was telling you. We’ve been every year since then, nearly. You can sit on the pier and there’s such a lot to see — the people all enjoying themselves, and the band, and the pierrots, and that. The time passes so quick, you’d never think. You’ve hardly got there before it’s time to come away again. It’s ever such a lovely place.”
Corbett nodded. “It’s good fun, a holiday like that if you just want a lazy time,” he said. Nothing would have induced him to do it himself.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Littlejohn. “You and Mrs. Corbett — you like doing things when you’re on holiday. We like to sit quiet in a motor coach, and watch other people doing things.”
Mrs. Littlejohn said, “You can go lovely drives from Brighton....”
After the meal the Littlejohns got up to go. “Early to bed,” said the builder. “Maybe we shan’t get so much sleep later on.” He looked out into the wet night. “Still, it doesn’t look much like a raid tonight.”
The little woman said to Joan, “It’s been ever so kind of you, I’m sure.” She hesitated. “If you want the baby looked after any time, Mrs. Corbett, it would be a real pleasure. Quite took to me she did, didn’t she?”
They went away; Corbett stood looking after them thoughtfully. “Brighton in August,” he said. “I just can’t understand it.”
Joan shook her head. “They’re such — such genuine people,” she said. “I don’t say that I want to see an awful lot of them, but they’re terribly nice in their own way.”
She yawned. “It will be good when things get settled down and we can get some maids again,” she said. “I’m sick of washing nappies for the baby.”
Again they got out baskets with the gas masks, food, and drink, and left them in the hall. Then they went up to bed.
In the dark, rainy night they woke to a shattering concussion, near at hand.
Corbett did not hear it consciously. He found himself suddenly awake and standing near the door of his bedroom, his hands pressed to his ears which were aching with pain. In the nursery upstairs he heard the children begin crying; he ran up to them, to help Joan.
As he opened the door there was a blinding flash outside that lit up the room through the green curtains, and another concussion. The glass from the nursery windows fell tinkling to the floor; the children redoubled their screams. Joan was busy with the baby; he moved forward and touched her on the shoulder. “Get baby out into the trench,” he shouted through the din. “Stay there yourself. I’ll get the others dressed and bring them out.”
There was another concussion, this time further off. Joan slipped on shoes and a raincoat over her pyjamas, picked up the child and wrapped it in a shawl, and ran downstairs. Corbett turned to the other children.
“Come on, Juggins,” he said gently to his screaming, three-year-old son. “Be a brave soldier and get dressed. Big men like you aren’t frightened of a few little bangs. Where did they put your combinations?”
Another bomb fell near at hand; he touched both children, thinking to quiet them. Then he picked up a woollen garment from a chair. “Come on, old man,” he said. “Get into this, and we’ll go and find Mummy.”
Phyllis, his six-year-old daughter, stopped crying instantly. “That’s my combies that you’re giving John,” she said, snivelling indignantly.
Corbett forced a laugh. “I’ll give him all your clothes unless you put them on yourself,” he said. “Then you’ll have to wear his.”
He got the children dressed without much trouble after that. Bombs continued to fall in the more distant parts of the city; he hurried the children down through the house and into the garden, only stopping to get a pair of shoes and a coat for himself. Joan was in the trench; he passed the children down to her.
“This is a bloody picnic,” he said sourly.
She laughed shortly. “You’re right. It’s terribly muddy here, Peter. If you could get a couple of chairs it might be better.”
He went back to the house and got the chairs, slid them down into the trench beneath the car, and followed them. Then he took the baby from Joan and sent her back into the house to dress; the child was crying steadily, confusing his thoughts. While Joan was away one or two more salvoes fell, not very near at hand, towards the centre of the city. Presently she returned, bringing with her the children’s mackintoshes and boots.
Corbett gave the baby back to his wife, went back into the house, and dressed himself. Then he went round the house opening what windows still had glass left in them; the wind and rain blew freely through the rooms, soaking beds, furniture, and carpets. He tried the radio, but found it dead; evidently the current had failed again, or was cut off from the city.
He went back to the garden. Before getting down into his trench he went and looked over the garden wall; in the dim light he could see the bulk of the Littlejohns’ car standing above their trench. “Littlejohn!” he called. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, ay,” said Mr. Littlejohn. He climbed up out of his trench and came over to the wall. “Is everything all right with you?”
“So far,” said Corbett. The bombs were still falling in the city; away to the south they heard the sharp crack of guns.
“It’s a terrible thing, this,” said the builder. “There don’t seem to be any of our own airplanes up, do there? Or searchlights, neither. I suppose them guns are anti-aircraft guns.”
“I suppose so.” They surveyed the sky. “I can’t hear any airplanes at all,” said Corbett.
“Wait a bit,” said the builder. “I can hear some now. Listen — very faint. Hear them?”
The wind sighed and the rain drove across the gardens; they stood in silence for a minute, listening. “I hear them now,” said Corbett. “They must be at a tremendous height.”
“Maybe that’s why there aren’t any searchlights,” said the builder.
“Searchlights wouldn’t be much good on a night like this. They’d only show them where the town was.”
“I reckon they know that all right,” said Mr. Littlejohn grimly.
Another salvo started to fall near at hand, and sent them hurrying to their trenches.
Corbett struck a match and looked at his watch; it was about one o’clock. He settled down on the chair opposite his wife in the narrow, muddy trench and took a child upon each knee. The baby, tired out with crying, had fallen asleep; the other two children slept intermittently.
Joan asked, “Peter, whatever shall we do if they start to drop gas bombs? With baby, I mean?”
“I’ve been thinking of that,” he said. “I think the best thing will be for you to stay here with the other two, and I’ll take her up to the nursery and stay there with her. With the windows open, right up at the top of the house like that, I don’t believe you’d get much gas. It’s fifty feet up from the ground.”
They thought it over for a minute. “I don’t like you being in the house, Peter,” she said. “I think it’s much more dangerous there than it is here.”
“You wouldn’t want me to leave baby up there all alone?”
“I’d rather she was all alone than have you with her in the house.”
He touched her hand. “I’ll take her up there if we think there’s any gas about. At present it’s all high explosive. There’s been no gas dropped yet, or incendiary either.”
Slowly the hours passed. The rain pattered against the car, and trickled from the wet ground down into the trench. Corbett sat, cramped and stiff, one child upon each knee; they dozed uneasily, waking and crying when the detonations were near to them. The baby slept quietly on Joan’s lap undisturbed by the heaviest concussions; they were anxious about her. She seemed utterly exhausted. They got some relief by stuffing cotton wool into their ears.