Somewhere Over England (28 page)

Chris looked at Mary. She had begun to come with him again because he had told her that he could fight now and one day he would and she was not to cry when she saw him with Joe. So far, though, he hadn’t fought. But the sun was too hot to think of all that now and Ed was waiting.

He was wearing a pitcher’s glove which Ed had given him. It was padded leather with a webbed pocket to help to catch the ball.

‘Remember to keep that foot in contact with the back plate
when you throw.’ Ed called and Chris nodded, checking that his right foot was on the square that Ed had marked out with a stone earlier. He held the cowhide ball with his thumb underneath and his first two fingers on top, and close together. The ball was warm and smooth.

‘Blimey, it’ll be time to go to bed before he gets going,’ Mary called and Ed laughed.

Chris threw the ball then and Ed scooped it out of the air, curving his body, moving his legs.

‘That was great, really great. Real quick. Try catching this.’

As he threw it Chris saw the twist of his wrist and the ball came at him from right to left and dipped at the last minute but he caught it, hearing Ed’s shout of praise and Mary’s cheer.

Ed came over and stood next to Chris. ‘Right, Mary, you get ready to catch the next one. Let’s see if boy wonder can throw a curveball like that.’ He checked Chris’s grip. ‘OK, the grip’s the same as the fastball but the fingers are parallel to the seam. That’s right. Now get that twist right. Like this, see?’

Chris watched as again and again Ed twisted his wrist but did not throw the ball. The American had tossed his jacket over on the grass when he arrived and rolled his sleeves up above his elbows. He had left base for two hours only today because there was a briefing at 14.00 hours.

‘OK. Now try that.’ He ran back, standing towards Chris. ‘Move in a little, Mary. Ready to go when you are, Chris.’

He threw then; the grip was right and the twist. They both missed it and the ball rolled to a halt yards behind, near to the trees.

‘You’re going great,’ Ed said, picking up the ball, showing Mary how to hold it and now Chris leaned forward, ready to catch. Again and again they did it until the sweat was rolling down Chris’s back and his shirt clung to him. Ed was hot too and Mary had flopped down on the grass in the shade.

Laura had made them ginger beer and they sat in the shade at the edge of the copse, hearing the bees in the grass, drinking it from enamel mugs which Chris had brought. Laura had told Chris to ask his American if he would like to come home for tea.

‘That’s kind of you all but I have to get back to base and I reckon maybe I won’t be back out again this evening.’ He reached across and dug into his jacket pocket. ‘Have a cookie.’

‘Why?’ Mary said, taking one of the biscuits, and then another. ‘Why won’t you be back out?’

The American shrugged.

Chris looked at him and asked, ‘Is the training over? Are you really going to fly properly now?’

‘Well, I guess maybe that’s what’s about to happen soon.’ Ed grinned but the smile didn’t touch his eyes and Chris looked away towards the pond.

He knew that look. It was how he felt when he saw Joe at the end of the lane and suddenly he didn’t want this man to go up in those big dark planes, dropping bombs, being shot at. He didn’t want the training to finish.

‘Maybe they’ll think you’re not ready,’ he said, looking down into his ginger beer. It was warm and not very nice. ‘Maybe the war will be over by tonight. Will it be tonight you fly?’

Ed drank back the last of his ginger beer, holding the mug in his large hand, not using the handle. Chris copied.

‘No,’ his voice was short, clipped. ‘Not tonight. We only fly in the daylight and as you say, Chris, maybe the war’ll be over by tonight.’ He grinned at the boy and reached out, flicking his hair. ‘But somehow I don’t reckon it will be. Sometimes you just got to get on with things.’

They sat watching the heat shimmering across the freshly harvested fields in the distance, seeing the wind brushing at the reeds near the pond, rippling the surface. A fly came and settled on Ed’s empty mug and a Red Admiral danced in and out of the cowslip until they could no longer see it.

When would they start the real thing, Ed wondered. He had just sent a V-mail letter back to his folks telling them that it was great over here. That he flew and trained, drank in the pub and taught baseball to an English kid. He asked them again to look after his mare because he wanted her fit when he got back. When he got back, when he got back. If he got back. He picked up a stone from the grass beside him and threw it from hand to hand.

‘No,’ he repeated. ‘Somehow I don’t think this war is going to be over by tonight.’

Chris swatted at the fly, holding out the bottle to Ed and shaking his head. ‘I guess not.’ He liked speaking the way the American did.

Ed looked at Chris. ‘So when’s your mom coming back down then?’

Chris shrugged. ‘I don’t know. When she can, I suppose. He laughed and looked at Mary who was giggling.

Ed asked, ‘So what’s funny then?’

Chris was laughing still so Mary told him that Helen had shown him how to box last time she was down.

‘Your mom? But why not your pop?’

Chris stopped laughing then and turned away. The wind was brisker now and there were ripples on the top of the pond and the reeds were shaking. There were clouds coming up from the east.

‘My dad’s dead,’ Chris said, still looking away, but then he turned and faced the man who was running the rim of the cup over his lips, backwards and forwards. ‘He was German. He was in a camp. They killed him. He was brave.’ The words were high-pitched, clipped, but they were out, for the first time they were out and what would Ed do? Would he move away from him, pick up his ball, his jacket and go?

Ed touched his shoulder. ‘That’s tough, real tough.’ That was all. He didn’t move, he didn’t shout. His voice had been kind. Chris looked across at Mary and she smiled. He pushed his hand into his pocket and took out Willi’s letter which he always carried now. It had seemed too dead somehow, in the top drawer.

He pushed it into Ed’s hand and then got up and walked to the tin bath, rubbing at the dried mud with a stick, clearing it off the sides, watching it drop as fine as sand into the bottom. He rubbed and rubbed and tipped the bath upside down, banging the base and then he rolled it over again. It was clean.

He picked up the plank and straddled it across and then he heard Ed walking towards him and Mary was there too. He didn’t look round but took the letter and shoved it in his pocket.

‘I thought I’d tie the drums on, then we can see if it floats,’ Chris said, still not looking round.

They worked on the raft, tying, knotting, securing, and nothing was said until it floated out across the pond, tethered by the frayed rope which they had kept hidden in an old wooden box in the reeds.

Chris stood with his hands in his pockets, grinning at Mary and then up at Ed, who smiled back. ‘That’s going to be great,’ he said, putting his hand on Chris’s shoulder.

Mary took the rope from Chris. ‘I told ’im,’ she said. ‘I told him about Joe. He wants to see what your mum taught you.’

Chris bit back his anger. How could she tell? It was their secret. Ed mustn’t know he was afraid. How could she tell? He snatched the rope back.

‘You should shut up,’ he hissed at her. It was cooler now. There were goose pimples on her arms. He hoped she was cold.

‘No, she shouldn’t shut up.’ Ed’s voice was firm. ‘She should have told someone a lot sooner. You need to give this Joe guy a good lesson, one he won’t forget. Like your pop gave those Nazis, like your grandpa is trying to do out there in Germany.’ He nodded at Chris’s surprise.

‘Yeah, Mary told me that too. But you need the tools to do the job, kid. You need to know what you’re doing or how can you fight back? No one can expect you to. Britain couldn’t do it. It needed all this stuff from the States. How can I fly without a plane? How can you fight back against this kid without knowing how? You’re just like the rest of us. Brave enough but scared too. It’s crazy not to be scared. It keeps you alive sometimes.’

Chris felt the American’s hands on his shoulders. They were gripping too tightly and he remembered the look in Ed’s face earlier. He was frightened too. That’s why he was digging his fingers in like he was. Ed was frightened, and if a big man like that was, it didn’t matter so much that Chris Weber was scared too.

So he showed Ed his right hand out in front, his left hand close in to his chin and the position of his feet but he still didn’t feel comfortable. He stood up and shook his head when Ed asked if he was a southpaw. ‘You know, left-handed.’

He shook his head and Ed smiled. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Your mom is some sort of special lady but she’s learned from a southpaw. You need to put your left hand forward like this.’ Ed’s eyes had lines at the corners when he smiled and the sky was blue above. The trees from the copse were throwing shadows far out across the grass and Chris felt happy right down to his fingertips to be here by the pond with him.

Pitching was forgotten for the next half-hour while Ed taught Chris and Mary too, because she did not want to be left out.

It didn’t matter hitting Ed. He was big and strong, not like
his mother and so his shoulders loosened and his head came down and he pretended Ed was Joe and landed punches, getting through Ed’s guard.

He was stronger now from the pitching. He could feel it and he was quicker too. But it was something else as well. This man knew that he was half German and it didn’t matter to him. Gee, he had said. Some Americans are Germans and Italians. How d’you think they feel fighting their own people? And should we hate them because they’re Germans or Italians? It’s what they are that’s important, isn’t it? It’s the ideas we’re fighting against, isn’t it?

Chris punched harder, rhythmically in time to that last sentence, It’s the ideas we’re fighting against, isn’t it, isn’t it? until Ed called to him to stop, yelling at Mary too who was shadow-boxing just two feet away. He showed them then how to use judo throws because boxing sometimes wasn’t enough, but it was getting late. Before he left, though, he kicked Chris’s feet out from beneath him, quickly, neatly and the grass was close to his face and smelt fresh and clean. Ants were running in amongst the stems.

‘Remember that one,’ Ed said, breathing heavily as he bent to pick up his jacket, looking at his watch, then breaking into a jog. He had reached the copse, ready to run through it out on to the fields and then down the road to the base but stopped and turned. ‘Hey,’ he called. ‘When’s the next drop for the postal order?’

Chris sat up and cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Next Saturday; ten hundred hours.’

Ed waved. ‘Keep practising and watch out for Mary. She swings a mean punch.’ He turned and was gone and Chris realised he hadn’t wished him luck.

All that week it was overcast, the cloud hung low over England and Europe.

‘The summer’s finally over,’ Laura said as she ironed before the kitchen stove on Thursday afternoon.

Chris could smell the fresh hot linen and was glad of the cloud because it meant the bombers were not flying; that the training had not turned into something more dangerous. It meant Ed was safe.

He practised all that week, sparring against Mary near the
pond but he couldn’t bring himself to hit her. She hit him though, and once he got angry and stalked off through the flattened grass, hearing her laugh, and he wished that Joe would walk round the corner that very minute so he could knock his block off while he was still angry.

He had to meet Joe in the woods because the crossroads was too busy with American jeeps and on Thursday he felt tired and taut because there were only two days now before he must stand up to him. He had decided that he could not wait any longer because his father had been brave and there were men out there in bombers with the same feeling in their stomachs and they went, so he must. On Friday he felt sick and his head hurt but there was only one day and night left.

Mary came round and she dodged and weaved in the garden and made him angry again but it didn’t last. It was only the fear that was left as darkness fell and he climbed the stairs to bed on legs that felt too tired to carry him. He wrote to his mother that night in the candlelight of his bedroom, bending low over the paper, his hand tight on his pencil. He liked the flickering light, it gave off heat and a waxy smell which was comforting.

He told her that tomorrow, Saturday, he was going to face the boys. That his friend Ed had shown him how to do some judo throws. He did not tell her that she had taught him as a southpaw, because ‘she was some kind of a special mom’ and he loved her so much. I miss you, Mum, he wrote. I miss you.

The next morning was cold and dull and as he ate an egg which tasted strange and the toast which was too hard, he looked out of the window and hoped that the cloud cover was thick and deep again today and that Ed was kept safely on the ground.

He had not seen him since last weekend. The Americans had been confined to the air base all week but that didn’t matter. It only mattered that the aeroplanes had not roared off from the runway at dawn, flown by men with frightened eyes.

‘Eat up then,’ Laura urged him, coming round the table, looking into his face, her flowered apron stiff from the ironing. ‘Are you all right? You don’t look too good.’

Chris nodded. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

He heard the postman come and walked to the door, picking up his mother’s letter. He opened it and took out the postal
order, putting it on the hall table but pushing the letter deep down into his pocket. He took his coat from the hook and left the cottage without saying goodbye, without seeing the geraniums along the path. There was no time.

He walked down the lane. The mist was thick and damp all around and the leaves lay sodden on the road through the village and smoke rose straight up from the chimneys because there was no wind. Jeeps came up and down the road, steering round him, clipping the verges so that grass became mud. Mary was waiting for him outside her cottage. He did not want her to come. He didn’t want her to see his eyes, or to see him beaten.