Shute, Nevil (17 page)

‘Aye, there was seven of them dropped there, but they didn’t do no harm. They copped a packet at Bursledon, someone was telling me.’

‘Was anybody hurt?’

‘Aye. Fell right in among the boats, hauled out of the water in Henderson’s yard. Knocked five or six of them right over flat, so they say-with the people in them and all.’

‘That’s bad.’

‘It is, that,’ said the man dourly.

Corbett went out to the yard and tried the tap; it was quite dry. He went back to the barman. ‘Are there any wells here that I could get water from?’

The man said: ‘I couldn’t say. Far as I know, everybody takes the water from the main. You might find an old well in one of the cottages, but I don’t know as I’d care to have a drink from it.’

‘No,’ said Corbett, thoughtfully.

He left the inn and went on to the sail store. The water would have to wait for a bit; he felt that he would like to think it over and have a talk to Joan before he started to get water from a disused cottage well. He started to carry sails and gear down to the dinghy; when he had a load he took it off to the yacht.

He told Joan about the water.

‘That’s another bad one,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you think we could get any over on the Warsash side?’

He was doubtful. ‘That probably comes from Southampton, too. No, I think I’ll take a run up to the aerodrome this afternoon and see if Collins could wangle some for us from their supply. He might be able to-if everybody else hasn’t thought of the same thing. I’ll take the car to bring the water-bag back in.’

‘We’ll have to get some more milk to-day, Peter. We’re down to that one tin again.’

He sighed. ‘I know. Look, I’ll go off now and get the rest of the stuff back on board. Then you can go and look around for milk while I start rigging the ship.’

He went back on shore and got a man to help him carry the boom of his mainsail down to the water’s edge. He carried down the gaff himself and loaded up the dinghy with the rest of the sails and gear. Then he launched the spars into the water till they floated, and towed them behind the dinghy to the yacht. Joan helped him to unload the dinghy and get the spars on board; then she went on shore with the two children. Corbett got to work on deck with spun-yarn, marline-spike, and knife.

It was a couple of hours before Joan returned. She brought with her a quart of milk, which she had purchased at a farm, having left the children playing in the mud beside the dinghy.

‘It was awfully difficult,’ she said. ‘I had to go about a couple of miles before I found a farm where they had milk to sell. I tried to get them to keep me some tomorrow, but they wouldn’t do that. Everybody’s after milk.”

They started to get lunch. ‘You know that shop I went to the other day?’ she said. ‘Where they had all that tinned milk? I believe they’ve got it still. I went in, but the man was there, and he just shut the door in my face. He said they hadn’t got any to sell.’

‘You told him we’ve got a baby?’

‘He knows that all right. I told him last time.’ After lunch Corbett left Joan to do the washing-up and put the children down for their midday rest, and went on shore to look for water. As he passed the inn the barman saw him carrying the water-bag, and called to him:

‘The water-cart’s just up the street, if you want any, Mr. Corbett. Better hurry up, or it’ll all be gone.’

He went back to look for it. It was a horse-drawn tank-cart used for carting water to the animals upon some farm; it was halted in the middle of the road with a crowd about it. The man in charge was selling water at sixpence a bucket.

Corbett pushed his way into the crowd. He asked the man: ‘Where did you get the water from?’

‘Old reservoir,’ the man said. ‘All clean and fresh. Best water round about these parts. Take your turn, Mister.’

Corbett withdrew as if to take his turn. He withdrew altogether. He was not squeamish, and the water looked beautiful, but he wanted to think about it for a bit before he drank the water from a cholera camp.

He walked down to the water’s edge again, started up his car, and drove out to the aerodrome. At the entrance he was stopped by a guard; he asked for Flight-Lieutenant Collins.

‘Which squadron, sir?’

‘I don’t know, I’m afraid.’

‘Park your car here, and go and ask in Wing Headquarters’ office, third door on the right. They’ll tell you there.’

He found the office and went in. A corporal was sitting at a desk talking into a telephone; there was much coming and going. Presently Corbett got a chance to ask for Collins.

The man looked up at him, ‘Is it on business?’

‘No. It’s a personal matter.’

The man got up and went into an inner office. A few minutes passed before he returned; a flying-officer followed him.

‘What is it about Collins?’ asked the officer.

‘I’m a personal friend of his,’ said Corbett. ‘I came up to see him.’ He paused. ‘If it’s not convenient, I’ll just leave a note.’

There was a pause.

‘It’s not that,’ the young man said awkwardly. ‘But Flight Lieutenant Collins-there was an accident, the night before last. I’m afraid you hadn’t heard about it. He was rather badly hurt.’

‘I see,’ said Corbett. He raised his eyes to the officer’s face. ‘Are you trying to tell me that he was killed.’

‘The other said hurriedly: ‘Oh, no. He was a good deal knocked about, though. He had both legs broken, and there were one or two burns… . He’s in hospital in Winchester.’

‘Do you know how he’s getting on?’ The young man shook his head. ‘I haven’t heard. We never do get any news of them, once they’ve left here.’

‘How did it happen?’

The young man said: ‘It was a collision in the air, just over the edge of the aerodrome here. Chap circling round to land took his tail off for him. They both piled up, of course. The other chap was killed.’

‘Was it the weather?’

The other nodded. ‘You can’t help it, flying on these bloody rainy nights. The clouds were down to about three hundred feet that night.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Still, that’s what happened, I’m afraid.’ ‘I’m terribly sorry.’

The officer turned back towards his room. ‘I’ve got a lot to do-I’m so sorry. … It wasn’t anything of importance that you wanted to see him about?’ Corbett shook his head. ‘Nothing important.’ He turned away and went back to the car; he drove down to the river and went on board again. Joan was there; he told her all about it.

Her lips tightened. ‘I’m awfully sorry for Felicity,’ she said quietly.

‘I know.’

They sat in silence, smoking for a time, the discarded water-bag at their feet. In the end Joan kicked it with her toe. ‘You didn’t get any water, I suppose?’

‘No. How much have we got left?’

‘Very little indeed. We’ll be out by breakfast-time tomorrow, if we wash up anything.’

He sighed. ‘We’ll have to get some more. I don’t think I can go back to the aerodrome-they probably wouldn’t give it to me, anyway. They’ll be short themselves. If Collins had been there I might have got some as a favour.’

Joan nodded. ‘I doubt if it’s much good going back there.’

‘Would you care for any of that water from the reservoir? There’s typhoid, cholera, and God knows what, camped right beside it.’

She smiled. ‘It sounds a bit insipid. Can’t you find me a nice, fruity well?’

He rubbed his chin. ‘Wells aren’t so easy to find these days. We might try on the Warsash side. But if we get well-water you’ll have to boil it before you give it to the baby.’

‘I suppose I ought to.’

She turned to him. ‘I’m sick of scouting about alone, Peter. Let’s go on shore together, for a change.’

‘How are you going to manage that?’

They did manage it. They took the baby in its cradle, fast asleep, and parked it in the kitchen of the inn on the Warsash side, with half a crown parking fee. Then they set off up the road to look for water, the children following behind.

They did not have to go very far. They found a cottage where a woman made them free of her well.

‘Nine ‘ealthy children I’ve brought up on the water from that well,’ she said comfortably. ‘Seven still with us, and all of them ‘ealthy as you or me, barring the goitre.’ She would not take payment for the water. ‘It’s little enough that one can do to ‘elp, these dreadful times,’ she said. ‘But pure well water-that one can share with other folks.’

They thanked her, and set off down the road carrying the water-bag slung upon an oar. ‘We’ll have to boil every drop of the bloody stuff,’ said Corbett when they were out of ear-shot. ‘I don’t want to get goitre.’

Joan laughed. ‘I don’t know that I know what goitre is,’ she laughed. ‘Sort of swelling, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Corbett firmly, ‘and I don’t want to know.’

He spent the evening boiling water in the pan that he had bought to boil the beef, and transferring it sterile to the water-tank. That night they had more trouble with the baby. The milk they had in hand was sufficient for only half a feed; they watered it to something like the proper volume, but the child cried continuously for two hours before it sank into a restless sleep.

When finally the noise ceased they got their supper, very quietly. Joan said: ‘Peter, we’ve got to face up to this milk business. It’s serious. I mean, I don’t think we ought to leave here without a few tins more. We don’t know what things may be like in the Isle of Wight.’

‘I know. We do seem to be able to scratch along here somehow or other, a pint or so at a time.’

‘That’s what I feel. We might find ourselves landed without any milk at all.’

‘If that happened, could we get along?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe we could. Phyllis and John can eat anything: things out of tins, I mean. But Joan-I don’t know. She’s all right on tinned milk we know that. But I tried her on that tinned soup yesterday, and she was awfully upset.’

He asked: ‘Would she be any better on another sort of soup?’

Joan shook her head. ‘It wasn’t mulligatawny, or anything like that. It was consommé Julienne.’

‘Babies do eat soup, though.’

‘Of course they do. But you start them off on good stuff made out of very fresh meat, and you give them a lot of milk along with it, at other feeds.’

He thought about it for a minute. ‘You mean this, really. If we can’t keep up the milk supply, we’re going to have real trouble?’

She nodded. ‘They go down so quickly. I’m afraid we might lose her, Peter.’

He smiled at her reassuringly across the table. ‘We’re not going to do that.’

They dropped the subject till the meal was over. But when the washing up was done, he said: ‘We’ll have to get some of that tinned milk from your grocer’s shop.’

She stared at him. ‘You mean the one over on the Warsash side? You won’t get any there. They won’t sell it.’

‘We’ll have to make them sell it. They can’t hog on to it in times like these.’

She looked very doubtful. ‘You’ll have to go. They wouldn’t pay any attention to me.’

‘We’ll go together. That woman at the inn would take the children for an hour or so.’

‘All right.’

They went on deck and smoked for a little in the cockpit. Lights streamed from the inn at Hamble, cheerful and inviting. Joan asked: ‘Are you going on shore?’

He shook his head. ‘I think the less we go on shore the better, the way things are now. If we want exercise, let’s get it on the Warsash side.’

They went to bed early, in preparation for a heavy day. They slept for an hour or so; then, punctually as an alarm clock, they were awakened by the raid. For a time they lay in their bunks listening to the concussions in the distance. A salvo fell very close to them, on the marshlands behind Hamble. The children woke and cried a little; they got up to comfort them and turn them over to sleep again. They stood together in the hatchway for a while with blankets draped round them. Bombs seemed to be falling all over the countryside.

‘I don’t believe they’re hitting Southampton at all tonight,’ said Joan. ‘They’re rotten shots.’

Corbett nodded. ‘They’re getting wilder and wilder. I don’t believe they’ll do much damage with this raid, except by a sheer fluke.’

Joan said: ‘They couldn’t miss London like this, though.’

‘No, London’s different. I bet they’re getting hell up there.’

After a time, before the raid was ended, they grew bored and cold, and went back to bed. ‘You’d better wake me if the ship begins to sink,’ said Corbett. ‘I’m going to sleep.’ Inured to the concussions by familiarity they fell asleep, stirring and turning over now and then at the nearer explosions. Presently all was still again, and they slept quietly.

They did not sleep for long. The baby woke them shortly before five o’clock, crying and whimpering in her basket in the forecastle. Joan got up to settle her, but only succeeded in rousing her to bellow lustily, continuously. Corbett got up and found Joan rocking the infant in her arms. The baby was red in the face, and screaming at the top of her voice.

He said: ‘I suppose she’s hungry.’

‘I think that must be it,’ said Joan. ‘We’ve got one tin of milk left. Shall we open it?’

He hesitated. ‘I should think we’d better. That’s the first thing we’ve got to tackle to-day.’

He reached for the tin and the tin-opener, and pierced it through.

‘Now we’ve got nothing left at all,’ she said quietly.

He was touched by the seriousness of her tone. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll get some from that shop, somehow or other.’

They gave the baby a good bottle; it stopped screaming instantaneously and fell asleep immediately it had finished sucking. Tired and on edge they went back to their bunks in the grey dawn and dozed uneasily until the day was bright.

They breakfasted and washed up; then they were ready to go on shore. Corbett put on a raincoat, and slipped the automatic into his coat pocket. Joan saw him do it. ‘Peter!’ she said. ‘You’re not going to take that?’

He met her eyes. ‘We’ve got to get some milk,’ he said evenly. ‘There may be difficulties. I think I’ll take it along.’

She said no more.

They went on shore together, taking the children with them and the baby in its cradle. They had no difficulty in arranging to leave the family in the kitchen of the inn for an hour; then they set out together up the hill towards the shop. They hardly spoke at all. There was a light drizzle of rain falling; Corbett walked with his head down, the cold metal of the loaded automatic hard against his hand deep in the pocket of his coat. It was incredible that he should be doing this.