The Last Lifeboat, page 3
It was such a ridiculous thing to say that the three siblings burst into laughter, which irritated their mother even more because she couldn’t understand what on earth was so amusing.
‘Are you enjoying anything about the job?’ Alice asked, grateful for the break in the tense atmosphere as she wiped tears of laughter from her cheeks.
‘The uniform’s nice,’ Kitty said. ‘Navy skirt and cream blouse. I’m mostly typing up responses to letters of enquiry so far, but Tony has told us to prepare for a deluge of applications when we officially open next month. He’ll be talking about it on the wireless next week.’
‘Who’s Tony?’ Walter asked.
‘Anthony Quinn, MP. The overseas evacuation programme was his idea. Churchill wasn’t keen, apparently. Thinks it will send the wrong message to the enemy.’ Kitty took a long inhale on her cigarette and blew smoke out of the open window.
‘I thought you’d given them up, Kitty?’
‘Don’t be such a nag, Mother.’ Kitty took another long deliberate drag and blew the smoke in the direction of her mother. ‘You should all listen to Mr Quinn speak. Take an interest in my work, for once.’
Alice protested. ‘I always take an interest in your work!’ It wasn’t strictly true. Kitty had a tendency to flit from hobby to hobby, job to job and romance to romance like a pollinating bee. Alice had learned not to become too invested in her sister’s latest love affair or place of employment (apart from offering sensible advice and a shoulder to cry on when either thing didn’t work out), and, as a result, she hadn’t fully understood the nature of Kitty’s new role, other than it being a clerical position that involved processing paperwork for evacuees. ‘I promise I’ll listen to Tony What’s-his-name. Happy?’
Kitty nodded. ‘Happy! And I want a full report afterwards!’
Alice saw Kitty onto the London train and wished she could keep her in Whitstable longer. For all that Kitty loved London, it made Alice nervous to think of her there.
‘Please take care. And go straight to a shelter if there’s a raid.’
Kitty brushed Alice’s concerns aside and said she worried too much.
‘It’s my job to worry about you. That’s what older sisters do.’
‘Come up to London sometime, will you? I’ll take you dancing. That’s what younger sisters do.’
Alice kissed Kitty’s cheek. ‘Maybe.’
As she watched the train depart, she wondered when she would see Kitty again, and a more sombre part of her whispered the unspeakable if she would see Kitty again. Departures and goodbyes were so awful now, laced with doubt and worry. War had altered and removed so many things, but perhaps the greatest loss was certainty. Everything was a question, and – like many things – answers were in short supply.
By the end of a wet and windy week, Alice had almost recovered from the ordeal of the trip to Dover, although her mother hadn’t stopped crowing about how wonderful Cousin Lucy was. Alice took the opportunity of a break in the weather to cycle to Mason’s farm, where Walter worked. Following his tribunal, he’d been assigned to a Reserved Occupation. He was lucky. Some Conscientious Objectors were being sent to the front as stretcher-bearers, or in other non-combat roles. Another local CO had volunteered to work in bomb disposal. Alice hoped Walter would be spared the same fate.
It was a sunny, lavender-scented afternoon, when it felt impossible that the world was at war. With air force training flights now being conducted over Kent’s fields and coastline, the Phoney War had become much more visible and real, but the skies above Alice as she cycled were quiet and clear, and her mood matched the bright day. She laughed as she freewheeled along the dry rutted tracks on her father’s old bicycle, jostled about on her seat like a ragdoll, but her mood quickly changed as a sickening whine sliced through the warm air: the unmistakable sound of an aircraft in difficulty.
Alice pulled hard on the brakes and brought the bicycle to a juddering stop in a puff of dry earth. She looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. High above, a trail of thick black smoke billowed from an aircraft as it dipped and rose in a chaotic motion, and then flipped forward and tumbled wildly toward the fields and apple orchards ahead. The fields and apple orchards where Walter was working.
Alice put her head down and pedalled furiously as the engine’s whine reached the height of its pitch and then, after a brief chilling silence, a violent explosion ripped through the air, like a crack of thunder in a summer storm.
‘Please not Walter. Please not Walter.’ She raced on, as fast as she could pedal, the wheels shuddering over the rough dirt tracks.
As she turned the corner at the end of the lane, she looked up to see Walter flying towards her on his bicycle.
‘Oh, thank God.’ Alice flung her bicycle to the ground and ran to meet him. ‘Did you see it? I thought it had hit the farm.’
‘Came down a couple of fields over,’ Walter gasped, catching his breath. ‘Come on.’
‘Come on what?’
‘Let’s go. I didn’t see a parachute. Poor bugger might be trapped in the wreckage.’
Alice was horrified. ‘We can’t go! We should get help—’
‘We can help, Alice. Come on.’
Before she could say anything else, she was back on her bicycle, pedalling hard to keep up with Walter.
The stench of smoke and aviation fuel hit her first. Eyes smarting, she covered her mouth with her headscarf as Walter threw his bicycle to the ground, clambered over a low fence and ran through the scorched crops toward the burning wreckage.
‘Walter! Be careful! It might explode again.’
Walter stopped before he reached the mangled plane.
Alice hitched up her skirt and followed him over the fence. As she caught up with him, she hesitated. A few feet ahead, a burnt and broken form lay among the barley, the flattened stalks stained a deep crimson.
‘Dear God.’ Alice clung to Walter’s arm. For a moment, she couldn’t work out which part of the pilot she was looking at. She’d never seen a body so broken and injured. The smell of burning flesh made her retch. She stood, frozen, as Walter walked forward and crouched down beside the limp figure.
‘He’s still alive!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘He’s still breathing.’
‘He can’t be.’ He couldn’t possibly be.
Alice stepped forward, heart racing, eyes blurred from her tears and the acrid sting of fuel in the humid summer air. As she approached, the pilot fixed his eyes on hers, not with a look of pain, despite his horrific injuries, but with a look of absolute fear. A low moan escaped from his lips as he mumbled an almost indecipherable word.
‘Did he say “Mummy”?’ Alice was sure she’d heard him say Mummy.
Walter talked to him, soothing him. ‘That’s all right, fella. Had a bit of a bang, that’s all. Take it easy there.’
It wasn’t possible to tell how old he was, only that he was far too young to be dying in a field in Kent. Alice felt bile rise in her throat. She turned away and vomited.
When she’d recovered, she forced herself to step forward, forced herself to lift the man’s bloodied broken hand and hold it in hers as Walter continued to reassure and comfort him. She felt the fabric of the scorched jacket sleeve, air force blue, still warm to the touch; the sensation of something soft, then hard beneath her fingertips. Flesh and bone. The heat and the smell were overwhelming. And then she heard it, unmistakable this time.
‘Mummy.’ It was all he could say, over and over in a panicked whisper. ‘Mummy. Mummy. Mummy.’
And then, silence.
His eyes were still open, still fixed on hers.
‘Is he …?’
Walter nodded and gently closed the pilot’s eyelids. ‘Pass me your scarf.’
Alice untied the knot beneath her chin and passed the square of Liberty silk to Walter. He quietly recited the Lord’s Prayer as he draped the headscarf carefully over the pilot’s face. He was so calm in a crisis, always knew just what to do, but he was angry.
‘So much for all Churchill’s talk about our heroic fighter pilots. What bullshit.’
Whatever Alice had imagined war to be like, this was beyond all comprehension. It was the second time she’d seen death up close. She hoped she would never see it again.
4
London. May 1940
Lily left the children in with Mrs H and walked to the bus stop on Clapham High Street. It was a long journey to Richmond, but Mrs Carr had asked Lily to stay on as her daily when the family moved from their Chelsea townhouse to The Beeches, and Mrs Carr paid better than most. Lily could do without her employer’s erratic temperament and her airs and graces, but she couldn’t do without the money.
As the omnibus rumbled on, Lily picked up a discarded copy of The Times from the seat beside her and tore out the page with the cryptic crossword. It took her mind off things for a while, but not for long enough. Too soon, she was walking up Richmond Hill, hanging up her coat in the boot room, pulling on her apron, going through the familiar routines of her day.
‘Clemmie and Charlotte are having such a terrific time in Canada. Did I tell you they’re staying with a cousin of Tom’s in Montreal?’ Mrs Carr stood at the large bay window in the dining room and fussed with an extravagant arrangement of roses she’d picked from the garden that morning. ‘You should send the children overseas, Lilian. Especially now that the government will cover the cost.’
Lily hadn’t even heard the words evacuation or evacuee a year ago. Now it seemed she couldn’t get away from them. Evacuation was all anyone seemed to talk about, and it nagged at Lily like a splinter in her mind.
‘You did mention that the girls were staying in Canada, yes.’ Lily knocked cobwebs from the wall sconces, dusted the picture rail, and responded in all the right places. She was used to Mrs Carr’s ramblings, well aware that the woman lived on her nerves and sweet sherry. Although temporarily suspended by the fact that he’d gone off to war, Tom Carr’s longstanding affair with their daughters’ ballet teacher was common knowledge among those who knew the family. Lily would feel sorry for the woman if she weren’t such an insufferable snob.
‘They’re both absolutely charmed by the place,’ Mrs Carr continued. ‘They torment poor Molly, writing to tell her about everything she’s missing. She’s furious to have had to stay behind, but it’s her own fault for riding a horse that was too big for her when she was expressly told not to. That girl never does as she’s told! Anyway, she’ll follow her sisters as soon as her leg is better. It has turned into the most wonderful experience. I’m so pleased we sent them.’
Lily ran her feather duster over the silver tea set on the sideboard, and while she wanted to say that she thought children were better off at home with their mothers, she kept her thoughts to herself.
Mrs Carr held a bloom to her nose and remarked on the scent. ‘Smell this. It’s divine.’
Lily inhaled the delicate sweet scent, but it was the bloom itself she admired the most, the intricate repeating design formed by the petals. It reminded her of the mathematical problems she’d loved at school, the quiet working out of sequences and patterns. Part of her still craved that mental challenge. Sometimes – especially when she was with Isobel Carr – she felt as if her brain was turning to jelly.
Mrs Carr finished tweaking the roses and stood back to admire her display. ‘You really should consider evacuation for Georgina and Arthur,’ she pressed. ‘Tom says that now the French have surrendered, Hitler will invade the Channel Islands next, and then they’ll strike for the mainland. Nazis, on British soil. I simply can’t comprehend it. Can you?’
Lily said no, she couldn’t comprehend it. ‘I don’t think anyone can. Not really.’
‘I might ship off to Canada myself if things continue to deteriorate here,’ Mrs Carr continued. ‘Tom wrote last week to suggest I give over the rose garden to grow potatoes and other vegetables. Can you imagine?’ She sighed dramatically.
Oh yes, what a sacrifice, can you just imagine? For a moment, Lily pictured herself telling Peter the story over tea later as they spoke about their days – though he’d met the woman only once, his impression of Mrs Carr was uncanny – only to be hit, as she often was, by the fresh wave of loss at remembering that he was gone.
‘Molly is sulking upstairs, by the way. I’m afraid you’ll have to dust around her.’
Lily quietly got on with her work, but the conversation left her irritable. Many of England’s Big Houses had already been given over to the military as hospitals and convalescent homes, and yet life at The Beeches stubbornly continued as if there wasn’t a war on at all. God forbid the rose garden would have to be given over for potatoes.
As Lily had been warned, Molly Carr refused to move from her bedroom, so Lily worked around the child as she griped and complained that it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t go to Canada with her sisters.
‘I’ll have to go with the unfortunates when my leg is better,’ she said.
‘The unfortunates?’
‘Evacuees whose parents can’t afford a ticket. The government will pay for them. But I’ll be travelling first class, so at least I won’t have to mix with them.’
Lily bristled as she swept around a pile of trunks beside the wardrobe, waiting to be packed with Molly’s many dresses and coats as soon as she was given the all clear to travel. She hoped Molly Carr and her misplaced sense of privilege had a terrible journey to Canada whenever she did go, and that she would be horribly seasick all the way.
Later that afternoon, while a stew bubbled away in the oven, Lily sat down with the crossword. She was stuck on thirteen across Coming apart (11 letters), when her attention was caught by a discussion on the wireless.
She turned the volume up as Anthony Quinn, MP, a rather pompous-sounding man, set out the details of the new Children’s Overseas Reception Board. ‘We call it CORB, for short,’ he said. ‘Under the scheme, children from areas most at risk from enemy bombing raids will be evacuated to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Jamaica, where host families are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their young British guests. The children will be accompanied by carefully selected volunteer escorts who’ll be with them throughout the journey. We anticipate some twenty thousand children will be evacuated overseas through the new scheme.’
He made it sound so straightforward. Pleasant, even.
‘What’s that man saying?’ Arthur raced into the room, hurled himself onto the settee and proceeded to drive his toy car along the imaginary roads he saw in the faded jacquard upholstery. ‘Are we going to be seavacuees? Are we, Mummy? Can we?’
‘Hmm?’ Lily turned the wireless up a notch as she jotted down the address of the CORB offices in Mayfair. ‘In a minute, love.’
As the programme reached its conclusion, a question was asked about the safety of the evacuee ships. Mr Quinn cleared his throat and stumbled a little over his words. ‘A full naval escort will be provided, and while the threat of U-boats cannot be ignored, all necessary precautions will be taken. The risks of the voyage are clear,’ he added. ‘The decision to evacuate is one for which any parents listening must take sole responsibility.’
Lily turned the wireless off, scrunched up the piece of paper she’d written on and stuffed it into the pocket of her apron. He made it sound as simple as choosing between chops or mince for tea, but there was no easy solution here. Keep the children in England and accept the threat of German bombs and invasion, or send them overseas and accept the risk of them being torpedoed on the way. It was an impossible choice. Unbearable.
‘Are you sending me and Georgie away on a big ship?’ Arthur jumped down from the settee and did an impromptu sailor’s jig.
Dear Arthur. He’d been hopping and skipping and whirling about as long as Lily could remember, as if life was far too exciting to simply walk through. Arthur is an energetic boy with a tendency to fidget in class was a familiar remark on his school report.
Lily scooped him into her arms. ‘No, love. I’m not sending you away on a big ship, or on a little ship, or in a hot-air balloon! You’re both staying in London, with me.’ She pressed her nose to the crown of his head and breathed in the sweet nutty scent of him. Her funny little boy. The much-longed-for second child who’d made their family complete. Since Peter’s death, Georgie and Arthur had become Lily’s entire world, all the unused love and affection she had for her husband now shared out among her children. Love was one of the only things there wasn’t a shortage of during a war, and Lily gave hers generously.
She closed her eyes for a moment and thought about the broadcast she’d just listened to. She couldn’t bear the thought of sending the children away again, especially not so far, even if the government were covering the cost. It had been bad enough sending them to the Cotswolds during the first wave of evacuation last September. They’d been given a warm and loving home with a retired nurse and her husband, but the ache of separation was too awful. It was Peter who’d first suggested bringing them home, the threatened invasion and gas attacks having never materialized. ‘I know it’s only been three months, Lil, but it feels like three years, and Christmas won’t be the same without them.’ She knew neighbours and friends considered it reckless to bring the children back to London, but she didn’t care what other people thought. The only thing that mattered was what she and Peter thought. They’d always made the big decisions together, which was why it was so hard to make this decision alone.
At teatime, Georgie announced that Beth Ingram’s cousin was being evacuated to stay with relatives in Australia. ‘Can we go to Australia, too, Mummy? Beth’s cousin says it’s very hot and nice there.’
‘What on earth is this obsession with Australia, Georgie? And don’t speak with your mouth full. And elbows off the table.’
Georgie sat up straight, her brow creased in concentration as she ate the rest of her tea in great hurried mouthfuls. She looked so like her father sometimes it was almost as if he was sitting there with them. ‘Well? Can we go?’ She put down her knife and fork, her plate empty. ‘Imagine if we saw a real kangaroo, Arthur! Or a koala bear!’
