couldn’t hear them she felt less left out than usual. They
smiled at her and one, a lanky, red-haired girl with freckles
and a ready grin, linked arms with her as they swung along.
She smiled back, feeling a little as if she were a foreigner
who didn’t understand the language, but aware that they
were friendly.
After a while they left the lane and crossed two or three
fields. In the distance, Judy could see a church tower which
she thought must be at Bridge End. She wondered how
Stella and Muriel were getting along. She would have liked
to go and see them, but her deafness made it too difficult.
She still shrank from new situations and encounters.
The wood lay in a hollow, and in the centre of it was a
swampy area, with tussocks of tough grass and reeds
growing in shallow water. Judy could see the moss growing
in thick, soft cushions of bright green everywhere. She
looked at it with interest, wondering just why it was so
valuable.
‘The moss has healing properties,’ Mrs Hazelwood had
told them as they set off. ‘It stops wounds from going septic.
We send it out to the troops.’
Everyone was wearing Wellington boots and they set
down their baskets on tussocks and began to work. It was
quite pleasant, Judy discovered, once you’d got used to
plunging your hands into the cool, damp cushions and
pulling them up to pack into your basket. It didn’t take long
to fill them, and within an hour or so they were on their way
back, each swinging two tightly packed baskets. As they
crossed the fields, they paused to gather wool left on the
fences by sheep and crammed it in with the moss. Mrs
Hazelwood received them with approval.
‘That’s excellent. We’ll have another moss-gathering
party tomorrow.’ Most of the women had meals to prepare
for menfolk and children, the evacuees as well as their own,
so could only spare an hour or two each day. But it was
surprising how much could be achieved in a short time, Mrs
Hazelwood told Judy, inviting her in for a cup of tea before
returning to the farm. An hour or so making scrim in the
mornings, another hour spent gathering moss or wool in the
afternoon, and it all added up to a substantial contribution
towards the war effort.
She took Judy into the garden again. The sun was warm
and they took their tea to the seat under the apple tree. Mrs
Hazelwood talked carefully, facing Judy so that she could
read her words. She talked about her children — Ian, who
had taken Orders and followed his father into the Army as a
chaplain, Peter who was a Lieutenant in the Navy, and
Alexandra who had volunteered as a VAD nurse and was at
present working at Haslar Naval Hospital in Gosport.
‘It’s good to have her so close. She comes home when she
can manage it, for her day off. But they’ve been so busy
during the last few months, with all the bombing…’ She
fell silent and sat gazing at the black cat, who was stretched
out on his back in the sun, soaking up the warmth. ‘I’m glad
to know they’re all being useful, though,’ she said at last.
Judy sipped her tea and thought how difficult it must be
for mothers like Mrs Hazelwood, knowing that their
children were in danger and unable to do anything to keep
them safe. She thought about Ben, who was as safe as
anyone could be at his school in Winchester, yet wanted to
leave that safety and take to one of the most dangerous of
occupations as an RAF pilot. How would the Hazelwoods
feel when he took that step, without even consulting them?
They’ll be upset about it, she thought, but they’ll be proud
too. And we all have to put our worries away in this war,
because it’s got to be fought, to save the whole of Europe,
maybe the whole world, from tyranny, and none of us is
really safe.
A shadow fell across the lawn and Ben himself appeared,
tall and loose-limbed in grey flannel trousers and white,
open-necked shirt. He grinned at his mother, winked at
Judy, and flung himself down on the grass beside the cat.
There were some extra cups on the tray and he poured
himself some tea.
Mrs Hazelwood stood up. ‘I’ll leave you to finish your
tea,’ she said to Judy. ‘And please come back tomorrow if
you’d like to do some more - but don’t feel you have to.
You’re here for a rest, remember.’
She walked away across the lawn, her skirt swaying
around her lean figure, and Judy watched her, thinking how
kind she was, how kind everyone was in this village. She
glanced at Ben uncertainly and he reached out a hand and
pulled her to her feet.
‘Come for a walk. Or are you worn out from all your
moss-gathering?’
Judy shook her head. ‘I feel I ought to be doing more.’
‘Well, we’ll take some baskets,’ he declared, ‘in case we
find something useful.’ He led her across the garden to the
shed where the baskets were kept and handed her one,
taking another for himself. Side by side, they strolled off
between the green hedges.
A little way along the lane, Ben turned off to the left
down a track Judy hadn’t noticed before. It was roughly
metalled and ran between hawthorn hedges frothed with
white blossom. The grassy banks beneath them were misted
with bluebells and here and there were patches of starry
white wild garlic flowers. Now and then the lane was shaded
by a spreading oak, ginger with new leaves just about to
burst, or a stand of tall elms crowded with rooks. There
were a couple of farm cottages, with small children playing
in the dust, and then the lane wound down a hill and forded
a river before climbing up out of the valley through woods
on the other side.
There was a narrow wooden bridge over the river, and
Ben crossed halfway and then sat down, swinging his legs
over the side. Judy joined him and they sat quietly for a
while, watching the brown water ripple beneath them.
‘I suppose there are birds singing,’ she said thoughtfully after a moment or two. ‘Wish I could hear them.’
‘You will,’ he said, and she could tell by his expression
that his voice was firm, as if he knew that what he said was
true. Judy shrugged.
‘I hope so. But nobody knows for sure. I might be deaf
always.’
He shook his head. ‘You won’t. You’ll hear again. I know
you will.’ He smiled, full of confidence. ‘You’ve just got to
want it badly enough - you’ve got to believe it.’
Startled, she stared at him, and then, suddenly angry,
began to get to her feet. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t you realise, I do want to hear again - I want it more than anything in the world! But it’s my ears - there’s something wrong with
them, something damaged. Just believing isn’t going to make
any difference.’ She scrambled up, but Ben caught her hand
and drew her back down beside him.
‘I’m sorry. Please don’t go, Judy. I didn’t mean to upset
you.’ She looked into his face, reading only some of the
words but understanding his expression, and suddenly he
looked so young, so pleading, that she burst out laughing.
‘All right. But please don’t talk like that. It’s silly.’ She
sat down and looked at him again. ‘You don’t know, Ben.
You can’t. Even the doctors don’t know for sure. I could be
deaf for the rest of my life. And even if I am,’ she paused, ‘it can’t possibly matter to you.’
Ben opened his mouth and then shut it again. He looked
away from her, down into the brown, rippling water, and
she saw his mouth move, but he didn’t look back at her to
repeat his words. She felt a sudden sense of frustration,
wanting to be able to talk to him, freely and naturally. I do want to be able to hear him, she thought with despair. I want to be able to hear everyone. But wanting isn’t enough.
Ben suddenly gripped her hand more tightly, indicating
something with his head. Judy followed his gaze and stifled
a little cry of delight. A bird was sitting on a branch a few
yards further up the river - a bird with brilliant, electric blue wings and a flame-red breast. As Judy watched, it dived
into the water and reappeared a moment later with a small
fish struggling in its beak. It flew back to its branch, gave a few quick glances around, and then disappeared into a hole
in the bank.
‘A kingfisher!’ Judy exclaimed. ‘I’ve never seen one
before. It was beautiful. But why did it go into that hole? Is
it hiding?’
Ben shook his head. ‘That’s its nest. It must have young
in there.’ He smiled his wicked, curving smile at her. ‘Now
are you glad we came?’
Judy nodded, and felt the easy rapport between them
return. The moment of uncertainty had disappeared in their
shared pleasure. ‘Yes, I’m glad. It’s a lovely spot. Thank
you for bringing me. But I ought to be going back to the
farm now. I promised to help Mrs Sutton with the supper.’
He nodded and got to his feet, helping Judy up. They
stood facing each other on the narrow bridge for a moment,
then Judy turned away and walked back to the bank. Ben
caught her up as she bent to pick up the baskets they had
left on the grass. He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re
not cross with me, are you, Judy?’
‘No. I’m not,cross.’ Their eyes met again and she relaxed
and smiled. ‘I’m not cross at all,’ she said softly, and began
to walk back up the track.
Ben fell into step beside her. They did not speak again
until he left her at the gate to the Suttons’ farm.
Chapter Eighteen It really did seem as if the raids over Portsmouth were
easing. There were only four during May, spaced several
days or even a week or two apart, and they were light in
comparison to the savagery of the three Blitzes. Some
houses at Tipnor were damaged and the main railway line
put out of action, but many of the bombs fell into the sea
and there were only three people killed and just a handful
injured.
The Luftwaffe had not given up, however. Liverpool had
been cut off by seven nights of continuous bombing, with
fires raging uncontrollably throughout, the worst of all being
at the Bryant & May match factory. The city centre had
been reduced to rubble, and a ship loaded with bombs and
ammunition had been set on fire by a barrage balloon which
fell blazing from the sky; the explosion sank six other ships
and destroyed the dock area. A hospital had received a direct
hit, killing sixty staff and patients, and a hundred and sixty
children had died when their school shelter was bombed. By
the end of the week, almost fifteen hundred people had been
killed and seventy thousand were without homes.
London was attacked again. Under a cruelly bright
‘Bomber’s Moon’, the heaviest raid yet left the House of
Commons, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and
the Royal Mint in flames. Every main railway terminus was
out of action, over three thousand people were killed or
injured and a hundred and fifty thousand homes had no gas,
water or electricity.
‘They’re having a terrible time coping with the homeless,’
the Mayoress told Polly as they walked out of the Royal Beach into the sunshine a few days after the raid. She had
been asked to go to London for a meeting at WVS Head
Office in Tothill Street. The main railway line had been put
out of action and, since the trains weren’t running, she had
decided to use the official car and asked Polly to drive it.
Polly was rather excited at the prospect. Driving a nice
car in daylight would make a welcome change from dashing through blacked-out streets in a converted van. She was looking forward to seeing London, too - she’d only been
there three or four times, long before the war had begun,
when Alice had taken her and Cissie to visit a cousin.
Johnny had talked about taking her to see the sights, but
somehow,” what with Sylvie’s birth and the miscarriages
later, it had never happened. Now some of those sights were
gone for ever, she thought, and others might not last much
longer.
The Lady Mayoress was still talking about the problem of
the homeless in London. ‘They don’t seem to have foreseen
such a situation, you see. They expected far more people to
be killed - over six hundred thousand were estimated, I
believe - and in the event there have been only twenty
thousand in London and forty thousand in the entire
country. Well,’ she caught herself up and gave Polly a wry
look, ‘one can hardly say only, but still it’s nothing like as
many as were expected. Whereas they did nothing to plan
for the homeless, and they already number over two million.
It’s a terrible problem.’
‘And not all of them as lucky as us, with relatives to go
to,’ Polly said. ‘Whatever will happen to them all?’ She
opened the passenger door of the car and the Mayoress got
in. Polly cranked the engine and as it hiccuped and then
purred into life she slid into the driver’s seat.
The Mayoress sighed. ‘I really don’t know where they’ll
all go. That’s partly what this meeting is about. It seems a