The Fleethaven Trilogy (86 page)

‘Will you be all right?’ Isobel asked, and there was no mistaking the genuine concern in her tone now. ‘I mean –
he’s
there, isn’t he?’

Instantly Kate regretted her uncharitable thoughts about Isobel.

She managed to give them a wan smile. ‘I’ll be fine. Danny – Danny won’t be there. Don’t you remember? He’s on honeymoon!’

Safely out of sight of the guard-room, Kate stopped the car and slid from the driver’s seat. Philip took her place. ‘Don’t stand there dithering, get in the front.’

He drove fast but expertly and after a mile or so, she began to relax and some of the guilt for her foolish behaviour began to ebb away. About midway between the two camps, he pulled over on to a wide grass verge on the top of a hill and cut the engine. They sat looking at the scene before them.

She felt his gaze upon her and turned to meet his eyes. They were full of compassion and tenderness. ‘Last night wasn’t like you, Kate. Not a bit. I know that. Something awful must have happened.’

She looked down at her hands, twisting together in her lap. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, splashing on to her hands.

‘Tell me,’ he urged her gently.

So she told him. Everything. From the very beginning, as far back as she could remember and even before that; about her mother, and Danny’s mother; about her father, who was also Danny’s father. And about Danny – oh, she told him all about Danny. She cried as she told him, but there was laughter too as she remembered everything. It was like reliving her life again. All the happiness – and then all the sadness.

When she had finished, she found she was lying with her cheek against the rough fabric of his jacket and became aware that his hand was stroking her hair. ‘You poor kids,’ he murmured.

She became aware of his nearness and sat up, suddenly embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry.’ She tried to smile, but her mouth quivered. ‘I seem to be saying that a lot today.’

His smile was sympathetic. ‘Has it helped?’

She nodded, and said, surprise in her tone. ‘Yes, yes, I think it has.’

‘They say it’s good to talk your troubles out. I sometimes wish . . .’ He leaned forward and pressed the starter. The engine leapt into life and whatever he had been going to say was drowned in the noise.

Tears blurred the rest of the words before her eyes. But this time they were not tears of bitterness over Danny. Kate was surprised to find how much her gentle stepfather’s rebuke hurt her, made her feel small and petty-minded. She sniffed and, like a small child, scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand.

‘
They are away on a short honeymoon – please try to come home to see your grandfather. He is not too well . . .
’ The letter continued with news about her mother and Lilian and the farm, but no further mention was made of Danny or Rosie.

Slowly Kate got up from her bed, biting her lip. She knew she had hurt Rosie, but until this moment she had not stopped to think how her absence from their wedding had hurt so many people. Beth Eland and Enid Maine, Rosie’s mother, too. But more than anything she could not bear to think that her stepfather was disappointed in her.

She would apply for leave. She was sure that Philip, understanding and kind, and now knowing the full circumstances, would grant her compassionate leave to go home . . .

‘Get down, Grandad, get down! Do you want to be killed?’

The old man was dancing up and down in front of the window, waving his arms, his bare legs, thin and white, sticking out from under the flapping tails of his night-shirt. ‘You dirty swine! You . . .’ But his expletives were drowned by the roaring of engines as another enemy plane, its swastika plainly visible, swooped by, low and vicious, strafing the front of the farmhouse with a shower of bullets. Kate threw herself at the old man, pushing him to the floor and landing on top of him, knocking the breath out of him. He lay there gasping, but still found the strength to swear volubly. As the plane roared past, there was a rat-a-tat-tat of bullets against the brickwork. Just above them the glass of the window shattered and bullets whistled over their heads to embed themselves in the far wall of the room.

‘There, are you satisfied now?’ she panted. ‘You nearly got us both killed . . .’ Her words were drowned by a loud ‘crump’ which rattled the very foundations of the farmhouse. Every door and window rattled and more glass shattered. Soot billowed from the chimney stack like a black shroud, enveloping them both.

‘Oh my God! That’s a bomb and it’s bloody close.’ Now she was scrambling up, oblivious to further danger.

‘Kate, don’t . . .’ he wheezed, struggling to his feet, but she was out of his room and running through the house. There was glass everywhere. It looked as if every window was shattered. As she passed through the living room, soot covered everything. In the kitchen, pots lay smashed on the floor where they’d been vibrated from the shelf and the door stood drunkenly, half off its hinges.

Kate rushed out into the yard. ‘Mam!
Mam
!’ She looked wildly about her. Hens were rushing to and fro squawking loudly and flapping their wings in the pretence of flight. From the stable came the whinnying of the frightened horses and hooves struck repeatedly at the door.

‘Mam – Dad! Where are you?’ she yelled. Now there was silence – a deathly silence. The planes, having wrought their havoc, had gone, streaking away across the North Sea to safety.

She ran to the gate and looked up and down the lane. To her right, beyond the Hump, rose a cloud of dust and smoke.

‘Oh no!’ she cried. ‘Not the cottages – please, not the cottages.’

Then she was running, running like the wind, her heart pounding, desperately afraid of what she would find.

She had arrived at Brumbys’ Farm only half an hour before and hadn’t even seen her mother and stepfather. Only her grandfather had been at home, sitting in the chair by the window in his room, still in his night-shirt.

‘Ya mam wants me to stay in bed. Me chest is bad, but I ’ate lying in bed. Me elbows get sore. ‘Sides, I like to see out the window, across the fields . . .’ His old eyes had watered and she knew he must miss being out in the open air when illness confined him to his room. Then he was smiling at her, but the old eyes were still regarding her shrewdly. ‘This is a surprise. Couldn’t make it for the wedding, I s’pose?’

Kate returned his gaze steadily. Then, finding she was holding her breath, she let it out in a deep sigh. There was no point in even trying to deceive Will Benson. ‘I – I couldn’t face it, Grandad, but I’ve been feeling bad about it ever since.’

‘Aye, well, lass. I can understand, but I can’t excuse ya, ’cos it upset poor Rosie. And Danny.’

‘I – just need a bit of time, Grandad. It was such a shock when he – he came to the camp to tell me. I thought I was over it – beginning to lead my own life, but then when Danny came and said he – he was getting married and – and to Rosie . . .’

The gnarled old hand reached out and covered hers, twisting in her lap. ‘I know, lass, I know,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I – I came home to see his mam and Enid . . .’

It was then they had heard the drone of the aircraft coming nearer and nearer . . .

Kate arrived at the top of the Hump and stopped. Before her was a scene of devastation. It was not the cottages, although they had suffered damage. It was the Seagull, which had taken a direct hit. A small incendiary bomb had fallen on one end of the building, slicing rooms in half so that Kate could see the interior, like her own dolls’ house when the whole of the front was opened. She could even see the wallpaper on the remaining inner wall of the bedroom. A bed hung precariously half-on, half-off the portion of floor left, teetering on the edge. The bomb had buried itself in the soft earth, making a crater the size of the pond at Brumbys’ Farm, and now flames licked at the already half-destroyed building.

Kate absorbed all this in a brief second’s pause, then she was flying down the slope towards the building. It was lunch-time opening; there must have been people in the pub. Others were emerging from the cottages and hurrying towards the scene. Kate could see Grannie Harris watching through the broken window of her kitchen, her hand to her mouth. Then two of the soldiers who had been on duty through the previous night and sleeping in Dan Hanley’s cottage when the bomb fell, appeared. They were bare-chested, their trousers pulled on hastily. Enid Maine appeared in her doorway, clutching at the door post for support, staring wide-eyed.

Then, suddenly, there was Beth Eland. She came out of her cottage, wrapped a black shawl over her head and walked slowly towards the pub. She didn’t run, didn’t even hurry. It was as if she were drawn to the scene but was reluctant to reach it.

‘Get some water!’ Kate shouted to the two soldiers. ‘Let’s get this fire out first. Get buckets, anything. Form a chain.’

Without realizing it, she was taking charge. All her young life, she had seen how farmers dealt with stack fires and then she had witnessed the calm efficiency on Suddaby Station after an air-raid.

Kate ran to the nearest cottage – Enid’s home. ‘Look sharp, our Enid, get working the pump in your kitchen filling buckets. Where’s the boys? They can help too . . .’

Soon everyone there was helping to transport water to the base of the fire – all except Beth. She stood, a lonely, lost figure, a little way off, just staring at the ravaged building.

Kate grasped her arm. ‘Where’s Mester Eland? We could do with his help. Is he out fishing?’

Slowly Beth shook her head.

‘Where is he, then?’

Beth’s gaze was fixed upon the building, mesmerized. Kate shook her arm, trying to bring her out of her stupor. ‘Where is he?’ she repeated.

Beth’s voice was a strangulated whisper. ‘In – in the pub.’

‘Oh, no!’ Kate breathed, then, grasping at straws, she added, ‘Maybe he’ll be all right. Perhaps he was in the other end of the pub that wasn’t hit. Maybe he’s just – trapped.’

‘He – he’d have been playing dominoes with Tom Willoughby,’ Beth whispered.

Kate put her arm around Beth but she could think of nothing more to say now for she knew as well as Beth that the men played dominoes in the corner of the main bar; the end of the building where the bomb had fallen. Kate felt sick in the pit of her stomach. Her stepfather, Jonathan, sometimes played with them too.

‘I must go and help,’ she whispered. Beth nodded but remained standing where she was; a still, silent, watchful figure, her arms clasped about her body, hugging the shawl closely around her.

I wish I hadn’t come home, Kate was thinking. I wish I was anywhere but here.

It was like the time the station had been bombed and Edith’s lifeless body had been dragged from the rubble. But this was worse, much worse. This time there were going to be the bodies of people she had known all her life; and among them Robert Eland, the man Danny had called Father all his life.

The fire was out and now they started to move the rubble carefully, praying – but without real hope – that they might find Tom and Robert alive. An air-raid warden and a police constable arrived from Lynthorpe.

‘We saw the planes swooping over here and then the bombs.’

‘Bombs?’ Kate looked up sharply. ‘Was there more than this one?’

‘Oh aye,’ the warden said. ‘One fell into a field not far from Souters’ Farm. It’s not done much damage as the soft ground took the impact and another fell in the lane on the way to town from here – that’s why we’ve been a long time getting here. We had to come right round by the Grange.’

‘You – you haven’t seen my mother and father, have you?’

‘No, love, sorry, I ain’t. They missing?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve only just got home. I’d only just got into the house and was talking to me grandad when the planes came.’

‘The old man all right, is he?’

‘Just!’ Kate replied wryly. They stood looking at the ruins that had been the pub. The warden sighed. ‘I aren’t looking forward to this, lass.’

‘No.’ Kate glanced back over her shoulder and saw that Beth was still standing in the same place, her arms wrapped around herself, just waiting.

At that moment, a figure appeared at the top of the Hump and came plunging down the slope towards them, her hair dishevelled and flying free, her eyes wide with fear, her hand outstretched.

‘Oh, Mam!’ Kate breathed, and ran to meet her.

Esther gripped her arms, not pausing to express surprise at Kate being there; there was only one thought on her mind.

‘Where is he? Where’s ya dad? Where’s Jonathan?’

‘I
sn’t he with you?’ Kate realized it was a stupid question immediately she’d spoken.

Her mother shook her head wildly. ‘No – no. I’ve been into town – in the trap. I saw the bombs. I – I thought it was the farm . . .’ She gulped painfully. ‘I came tearing home – a bomb had landed in the lane – I had to go right round by the Grange to get back.’

‘Where is me dad, then?’

Esther was staring with terrified eyes at the ruins of the pub and clinging to Kate, her grip so intense that her fingers dug into Kate’s arms. ‘He – he said he would tek the cows up to North Marsh Field and then when he came back he – he might walk down the road and have a – game of dominoes at the pub.’