by Nevil Shute
“Will you make me one to-morrow?”
“All right, I’ll make you one to-morrow.” They went off together, and whistled all over the hotel and through the village, till the bark crushed beneath the grip of a hot hand. But the whistle was still good for taking to bed, together with a Teddy and a doll called Mélanie.
“It was so very kind of you to make that whistle for the children,” Mrs. Cavanagh said that night, over coffee. “They were simply thrilled with it.”
“Children always like a whistle, especially if they see it made,” the old man said. It was one of the basic truths that he had learned in a long life, and he stated it simply.
“They told me how quickly you made it,” she said. “You must have made a great many.”
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve made a good many whistles in my time.” He fell into a reverie, thinking of all the whistles he had made for John and Enid, so many years ago, in the quiet garden of the house at Exeter. Enid who had grown up and married and gone to live in the United States. John who had grown up and gone into the Air Force. John.
He forced his mind back to the present. “I’m glad they liked it,” he said. “I promised Ronald that I’d make him one to-morrow.”
To-morrow was the tenth of May. As the old man sat in his deck chair beneath the trees carving a whistle for Ronald, German troops were pouring into Holland, beating down the Dutch army. The Dutch Air Force was flinging its full strength of forty fighting planes against the Luftwaffe. A thousand traitors leapt into activity; all through the day the parachutists dropped from the sky. In Cidoton the only radio happened to be switched off, and so Howard whittled at his hazel twig in peace.
It did not break his peace much when they switched it on. In Cidoton the war seemed very far away; with Switzerland to insulate them from the Germans the village was able to view the war dispassionately. Belgium was being invaded again, as in the last war; the sale Boche! This time Holland, too, was in it; so many more to fight upon the side of France. Perhaps they would not penetrate into France at all this time, with Holland to be conquered and assimilated first.
In all this, Howard acquiesced. He could remember very clearly how the war had gone before. He had been in it for a short time, in the Yeomanry, but had been quickly invalided out with rheumatic fever. The cockpit of Europe would take the shock of the fighting as it usually did; there was nothing new in that. In Cidoton, it made no change. He listened to the news from time to time in a detached manner, without great interest. Presently fishing would begin; the snow was gone from the low levels and the mountain streams were running less violently each day.
The retreat from Brussels did not interest him much; it had all happened before. He felt a trace of disquiet when Abbeville was reached, but he was no great strategist, and did not realize all that was involved. He got his first great shock when Leopold, King of the Belgians, laid down his arms upon the 29th of May. That had not happened in the last war, and it upset him.
But on that day nothing could upset him for very long. He was going fishing for the first time next morning, and the evening was occupied in sorting out his gear, soaking his casts and selecting flies. He walked six miles next day and caught three blue trout. He got back tired and happy at about six o’clock, had dinner, and went up immediately to bed. In that way he missed the first radio broadcasts of the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Next day he was jerked finally from his complacence. He sat by the radio in the estaminet for most of the day, distressed and worried. The gallant retreat from the beaches stirred him as nothing had for months; for the first time he began to feel a desire to return to England. He knew that if he went there would be nothing for him to do, but he wanted to be back. He wanted to be in the thick of things again, seeing the British uniforms in the streets, sharing the tension and anxiety. Cidoton irked him with its rustic indifference to the war.
By June the 4th the last forces had left Dunkirk, Paris had had its one and only air raid, and Howard had made up his mind. He admitted as much that night to Mrs. Cavanagh.
“I don’t like the look of things at all,” he said. “Not at all. I think I shall go home. At a time like this, a man’s place is in his own country.”
She looked at him, startled. “But surely, you’re not afraid that the Germans will come here, Mr. Howard? They couldn’t get as far as this.” She smiled reassuringly.
“No,” he said, “they won’t get much further than they are now. But at the same time, I think I shall go home.” He paused, and then he said a little wistfully, “I might be able to get into the A.R.P.”
She knitted on quietly. “I shall miss having you to talk to in the evenings,” she said. “The children will miss you, too.”
“It has been a great pleasure to have known them,” he said. “I shall miss them.”
She said, “Sheila enjoyed the little walk you took her for. She put the flowers in her tooth mug.”
It was not the old man’s way to act precipitately, but he gave a week’s notice to Madame Lucard that night and planned to leave on the eleventh. He did it in the estaminet, and provoked a lively discussion on the ethics of his case, in which most of the village took part. At the end of an hour’s discussion, and a round of Pernod, the general opinion was favourable to him. It was hard on Madame Lucard to lose her best guest, the gendarme said, and sad for them to lose their English Camarade, but without doubt an old soldier should be in his own country in these times. Monsieur was very right. But he would return, perhaps?
Howard said that he hoped to return within a very few weeks, when the dangerous stage of the war had passed.
Next day he began to prepare for his journey. He did not hurry over it because he meant to stay his week out. In fact, he had another day’s fishing and caught another two blue trout. There was a lull in the fighting for a few days after the evacuation from Dunkirk and he went through a day of indecision, but then the Germans thrust again upon the Somme and he went on preparing to go home.
On the ninth of June Cavanagh appeared, having driven unexpectedly from Geneva in his little car. He seemed more worried and distrait than usual, and vanished into the bedroom with his wife. The children were sent out to play in the garden.
An hour later he tapped upon the door of Howard’s bedroom. The old man had been reading in a chair and had dropped asleep, the book idle on his lap. He woke at the second tap, settled his spectacles, and said, “Come in?”
He stared with surprise at his visitor, and got up. “This is a great pleasure,” he said formally. “But what brings you out here in the middle of the week? Have you got a holiday?”
Cavanagh seemed a little dashed. “I’ve taken a day off,” he said after a moment. “May I come in?”
“By all means.” The old man bustled round and cleared a heap of books from the only other chair in the room. Then he offered his guest a cigarette. “Won’t you sit down?”
The other sat down diffidently. “What do you think of the war?” he asked.
Howard said, “I think it very serious. I don’t like the news at all.”
“Nor do I. I hear you’re going home?”
“Yes, I’m going back to England. I feel that at a time like this my place is there.”
There was a short silence. Then Cavanagh said, “In Geneva we think that Switzerland will be invaded.”
Howard looked at him with interest. “Do you, now! Is that going to be the next thing?”
“I think so. I think that it may happen very soon.”
There was a pause. Then Howard said, “If that happened, what would you do?”
The little sandy-haired man from Geneva got up and walked over to the window. He stood for a moment looking out over the meadows and the pinewoods. Then he turned back into the room. “I should have to stay in Geneva,” he said. “I’ve got my work to do.”
“Would that be very — wise?”
“No,” said Cavanagh frankly. “But it’s what I have made up my mind to do.”
“Would the Germans allow the League to function at all?”
“We have positive assurances that they will.”
“What does your wife think about it?” asked Howard.
“She thinks that it’s the proper thing to do. She wants to come back to Geneva with me.”
“Oh . . .”
The other turned to him. “It’s really about that that I looked in to see you,” he said. “If we do that, things may go hardly with us before the war is over. If the Allies win they’ll win by the blockade. There won’t be much to eat in any German territory.”
Howard stared at the little man in wonder. “I suppose not.” He had not credited Cavanagh with such cool courage.
“It’s the children,” the other said apologetically. “We were thinking — Felicity was wondering . . . if you could possibly take them back to England with you, when you go.”
He went on hurriedly, before Howard could speak, “It’s only just to take them to my sister’s house in Oxford, up on Boars Hill. As a matter of fact, I could send her a telegram and she could meet you at Southampton with the car, and drive them straight to Oxford. It’s asking an awful lot, I’m afraid. If you feel you couldn’t manage it . . . we’ll understand.”
Howard stared at him. “My dear chap,” he said, “I should be only too glad to do anything I can to help. But I must tell you, that at my age I don’t stand travel very well. I was quite ill for a couple of days in Paris, on my way out here. I’m nearly seventy, you know. It would be safer if you put your children in the care of somebody a little more robust.”
Cavanagh said, “That may be so. But as a matter of fact, there is nobody. The alternative would be for Felicity to take the children back to England herself.”
There was a pause. The old man said, “I see. She doesn’t want to do that?”
The other shook his head. “We want to be together,” he said, a little pitifully. “It may be for years.”
Howard stared at him. “You can count on me to do anything within my power,” he said. “Whether you would be wise to send the children home with me is something that you only can decide. If I were to die upon the journey it might cause a good deal of trouble, both for your sister in Oxford and for the children.”
Cavanagh smiled. “I’m quite prepared to take that risk,” he said. “It’s a small one compared with all the other risks one has to take these days.”
The old man smiled slowly. “Well, I’ve been going seventy years and I’ve not died yet. I suppose I may last a few weeks longer.”
“Then you’ll take them?”
“Of course I will, if that’s what you want me to do.”
Cavanagh went away to tell his wife, leaving the old man in a flutter. He had planned to stay in Dijon and in Paris for a night as he had done on the way out; it now seemed to him that it would be wiser if he were to travel straight through to Calais. Actually it meant no changes in his arrangements to do that, because he had booked no rooms and taken no tickets. The changes were in his plans; he had to get accustomed to the new idea.
Could he manage the two children by himself, or would it be wiser to engage a village girl from Cidoton to travel with them as far as Calais to act as a bonne? He did not know if a girl could be found to come with them. Perhaps Madame Lucard would know somebody . . .
It was only later that he realized that Calais was in German hands, and that his best route across the Channel would be by way of St. Malo to Southampton.
He came down presently, and met Felicity Cavanagh in the salon. She caught his hand. “It’s so very, very kind of you to do this for us,” she said. It seemed to him that she had been crying a little.
“Not in the least,” he said. “I shall enjoy having them as travelling companions.”
She smiled. “I’ve just told them. They’re simply thrilled. They’re terribly excited to be going home with you.” It was the first time that he had heard her speak of England as home.
He broached the matter of a girl to her, and they went together to see Madame Lucard. But Cidoton proved to be incapable of producing anybody willing to go with them to St. Malo, or even as far as Paris. “It doesn’t matter in the least,” said Howard. “After all, we shall be home in twenty-four hours. I’m sure we shall get on famously together.”
She looked at him. “Would you like me to come with you as far as Paris? I could do that, and then come back to Geneva.”
He said, “Not at all — not at all. You stay with your man. Just tell me about their clothes and what they say, er, when they want to retire. Then you won’t need to worry any more about them.”
He went up with her that evening to see them in bed. He said to Ronald, “So you’re coming back to England with me, eh, to stay with your auntie?”
The little boy looked up at him with shining eyes. “Yes, please! Are we going in a train?”
Howard said, “Yes, we’ll be a long time in the train.”
“Will it have a steam engine, or a ‘lectric one?”
“Oh — a steam engine, I think. Yes, certainly, a steam engine.”
“How many wheels will it have?” But this was past the old man’s capacity.
Sheila piped up, “Will we have dinner in the train?”
“Yes,” he said, “you’ll have your dinner in the train. I expect you’ll have your tea and your breakfast in it too.”
“Oo . . . Oo,” she said. And then, incredulously, “breakfast in the train?”
Ronald stared at him. “Where will we sleep?”
His father said, “You’ll sleep in the train, Ronnie. In a little bed to yourself.”
“Really sleep in the train?” He swung round to the old man. “Mr. Howard, please — may I sleep next to the engine?”
Sheila said, “Me too. I want to sleep next to the engine.”
Presently their mother got them settled down to sleep. She followed the men downstairs. “I’m fixing up with Madame Lucard to pack a hamper with all your meals,” she said. “It’ll be easier for you to give them their meals in the wagon lit than to bother with them in the restaurant car.”
Howard said, “That’s really very kind. It’s much better that way.”
She smiled. “I know what it is, travelling with children.”
He dined with them that night, and went early to bed. He was pleasantly tired, and slept very well; he woke early, as he usually did, and lay in bed revolving in his mind all the various matters that he had to attend to. Finally he got up, feeling uncommonly well. It did not occur to him that this was because he had a job to do, for the first time in many months.
The next day was spent in a flutter of business. The children were taking little with them in the way of luggage; one small portmanteau held the clothes for both of them. With their mother to assist him the old man learned the intricacies of their garments, and how they went to bed, and what they had to eat.
Once Mrs. Cavanagh stopped and looked at him. “Really,” she said, “you’d rather that I came with you to Paris, wouldn’t you?”
“Not in the least,” he said. “I assure you, they will be quite all right with me.”
She stood silent for a minute. “I believe they will,” she said slowly. “Yes, I believe they’ll be all right with you.”
She said no more about Paris.
Cavanagh had returned to Geneva, but he turned up again that night for dinner. He took Howard aside and gave him the money for their journey. “I can’t tell you how terribly grateful we are to you,” he muttered. “It just makes all the difference to know that the kids will be in England.”
The old man said, “Don’t worry about them any more. They’ll be quite safe with me. I’ve had children of my own to l
ook after, you know.”
He did not dine with them that night, judging it better to leave them alone together with the children. Everything was ready for his journey; his portmanteaus were packed, his rods in the long tubular travelling case. There was nothing more to be done.
He went up to his room. It was bright moonlight, and he stood for a while at his window looking out over the pastures and the woods towards the mountains. It was very quiet and still.
He turned uneasily from the window. It had no right to be so peaceful, here in the Jura. Two or three hundred miles to the north the French were fighting desperately along the Somme; the peace in Cidoton was suddenly unpleasant to him, ominous. The bustle and the occupation that his charge of the children had brought to him had changed his point of view; he now wanted very much to be in England, in a scene of greater action. He was glad to be leaving. The peace of Cidoton had helped him over a bad time, but it was time that he moved on.
Next morning all was bustle. He was down early, but the children and their parents were before him. They all had their petit déjeuner together in the dining room; as a last lesson Howard learned to soften the crusts of the rolls for the children by soaking them in coffee. Then the old Chrysler was at the door to take them down to Saint-Claude.
The leave-taking was short and awkward. Howard had said everything that there was to say to the Cavanaghs, and the children were eager to climb into the car. It meant nothing to them that they were leaving their mother, possibly for years; the delicious prospect of a long drive to Saint-Claude and a day and a night in a real train with a steam engine filled their minds. Their father and mother kissed them, awkward and red-faced, but the meaning of the parting escaped the children altogether. Howard stood by, embarrassed.
Mrs. Cavanagh muttered, “Good-bye, my darlings,” and turned away.
Ronald said, “May I sit by the driver?”
Sheila said, “I want to sit by the driver, too.”
Howard stepped forward. “You’re both going to sit behind with me.” He bundled them into the back of the car. Then he turned back to their mother. “They’re very happy,” he said gently. “That’s the main thing, after all.”