While the Storm Rages, page 7
‘Can you try and remember what it was called? Anything at all that would help us?’
But if the woman knew anything else of note, she didn’t have time to tell them, as a noise suddenly split the sky in two. It was a deafening din, something between a scream and a wail that ebbed and flowed and instilled in everyone an overwhelming sense of panic. People scattered in every direction. The woman tore back to the dogs home, presumably to keep the animals there calm. Winn and Frank certainly looked scared by the din.
‘Wait, missus, wait!’ Noah yelled, but there was no stopping her or anyone else.
‘Quick, Noah, we’ve got to get out of here,’ said Clem. ‘It’s the air-raid siren.’
‘What, the Nazis are coming already? But we’ve only just declared war. Were they waiting round the corner?’
The children hadn’t a clue what to do. They were in unfamiliar territory and hadn’t a clue where a shelter might be. But just as they decided to run after the nearest group of responsible-looking adults, the siren stopped wailing, though their ears didn’t.
‘It’s stopped,’ said Noah. ‘What does that mean? Are they coming or not?’
No one seemed to know and confusion took the place of outright panic, until the three of them heard the same thing from several different people.
‘False alarm. Go about your business.’ Which was easier said than done.
‘We need to find out where she lives. This Duchess.’ Noah said, desperation in his voice.
‘And how do we do that?’ Big Col grumbled.
‘We need to ask. Would they know in the library?’
‘It’s shut on a Sunday.’
‘Oh.’
As usual, Clem’s brain was already in motion.
‘I don’t know this for sure,’ she said, honestly, ‘but I think we need to apply logic to the situation.’
‘Go on then,’ replied Big Col.
‘Well,’ she went on, as they walked away from the building. ‘She’s a royal. And where do Royals live?’
‘Buckingham Palace,’ Noah replied.
‘When they’re in London, yes. But what about when they’re not?’
Big Col looked flummoxed. ‘I don’t know, in a flipping castle probably.’
‘Exactly!’ replied Clem enthusiastically. ‘And where’s the nearest castle from here?’
Neither of the boys could help her with an answer to that one.
‘Windsor!’ she tutted. ‘Honestly, do you not know anything? And where’s Windsor?’
Again, they had nothing to contribute.
‘West of London, just like that lady said. Right on the Thames.’
‘So if we head to Windsor, then you think we’d find this Duchess Hamilton-wotsit?’ Noah looked like he was ready to start running there.
‘Well, I can’t be sure, but think about it. When the old King died, where did they bury him? Windsor! And then when King Edward abdicated to marry that American woman a few months later, they gave him a new title, didn’t they? Duke of Windsor. I think the place is full of all the royals who are related to the King. I don’t have any other ideas, and the libraries are shut and I don’t think we could find out for sure without going home first.’
‘Well, we can’t do that. Soon as our mothers get hold of us we’ll be packed off to Cornwall. We’ve got to try it, Clem, it’s our last chance.’
‘This is all well and good,’ spat Big Col, who looked far from convinced by any of it. ‘But we’re meant to getting on a train to safety, remember? And I can’t afford to miss it.’
It seemed a strange thing to say. Noah couldn’t imagine Big Col liking the quiet of the countryside.
‘How on earth are we going to get there anyway? This Windsor sounds like miles away.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Clem said.
‘Don’t worry, that’s the easy part. Uncle Noah’s got a plan.’
Clem’s heart sank at the prospect of yet another ‘Noah plan’.
‘You can’t have,’ she said. ‘It will be miles and miles to Windsor, and we can’t walk at more than three or four miles per hour.’
‘So?’ Noah replied, without breaking stride.
‘So?’ Clem found herself becoming a little irate. ‘What did Big Col just say? Have you forgotten what’s meant to be happening to us today?’
Noah shrugged.
‘Today,’ Clem shouted, ‘right now in fact, we are supposed to be on a train. At this very second, we are meant to be evacuated, for goodness knows how long, to live with goodness knows who. Our mums should’ve waved us off at school, but instead they’re probably combing the streets for us, thinking we’ve run away.’
‘Exactly!’ said Noah. ‘As I said, we can’t go home and ask them to take us to the Duchess. If we tried, they’d frogmarch us straight down the vet’s again. Now we’re at war they’ll put Frank and Winn and even Delilah there, to sleep. We weren’t prepared to do it yesterday. And I’m not going to do it today either. And so if that train has left without us, so what? I don’t want to upset my mum, or yours.’ He glanced at Big Col, ‘And definitely not yours, but there’s a war on, Clem, and I’m not going to lose it on the very first day.’
There was little Clem could say to that except, ‘We still can’t walk there, Noah. It’s just too far.’
But Noah of course had the answer.
‘We don’t need to,’ he replied. ‘We’ll sail there. On the Queen Maudie.’
21
Clem didn’t waste her breath trying to change Noah’s mind. Instead, she spent the rest of the walk back to the boat trying to work out whether she should allow herself to be part of the plan.
Noah expected her to be, that was for sure, but she’d already disobeyed her mother by disappearing at dawn instead of boarding a train, and she knew that if she went home now she’d be in for the telling off of her life. But if she did what Noah was asking? Well, despite whatever he said, it seemed unlikely they could sail down to Windsor and back quickly. They’d be runaways, fugitives almost, and she knew her mother would be apoplectic.
Two miles from the boat, Frank decided he’d gone far enough, and began begging to be picked up, wrapping himself around Clem’s leg so many times that it was easier to carry him than waste time and effort not falling over him.
She felt Frank sag as soon as she held him to her, a long low sigh of pleasure escaping his grey muzzle. It was a sigh that soon became a snore and that was when Clem knew that whatever adventure Noah was about to embark on (and she felt, instinctively, that it wouldn’t be a smooth one), she would be going with him.
For as she looked down at Frank, and felt and saw the trust in him, nestled deep into her chest, there was no way she could hold him as a vet put him to sleep. She knew that any time she saw a dog, from that point on, all she’d be able to think of would be Frank and what she had allowed to happen.
She knew this choice would upset her mother, knew that it would worry her more and more with every second she was missing, but she also knew that in time, her mother would forgive her. Could she forgive herself if she ended Frank’s life? No, she could not.
‘Is the boat up to the job?’ She frowned. It had never looked in any way impressive before.
‘Course she is. If we... you know, take it slow. Me and Dad have been working on her.’
Clem frowned. ‘Hmm, and is there a map onboard?’
‘Enough maps for us to sail to flipping Zanzibar,’ smiled Noah.
‘Windsor will do, thanks.’
‘Fair enough,’ he replied. ‘But we need to hurry. It’s high tide now and we need to set off or we’ll run aground.’
‘Aye aye, Captain!’
‘And that reminds me. I’m wearing the captain’s hat. All right?’ He flicked a glance at Big Col, who was showing no signs of leaving them for home.
So no one mentioned it, and certainly not when they arrived back at the Queen Maudie. Because their attention was taken by something else entirely: a new large shape in a hat standing tied next to the boat. A shape that appeared, occasionally, to be moving.
Noah’s first thought was that it was Mum. That she’d caught on somehow to their plan, and had arrived to drag him home. But after another look, he realised that wasn’t possible, not unless Mum had taken to standing on four legs instead of two. For what they were looking at, unless they were mistaken, was a donkey. And a big beast at that.
‘Who’s tied that up there?’ Clem asked.
‘No idea,’ replied Noah. ‘But it had better not kick Maudie. The rust on that flank means her hoof would go straight through.’
‘Donkey as big as that one could sink that boat if it wanted to,’ added Big Col.
They hurried, only slowing down when they came closer to the beast. It was a hell of a size, with hooves like buckets.
The only thing that softened its brutish looks was a wide-brimmed, slightly battered straw hat, with holes cut out for its ears.
‘Why’s it wearing that?’ asked Clem.
‘Stops the flies getting in his eyes probably,’ suggested Big Col, unaware that this was the most intelligent thing he’d ever said to his companions.
‘Never mind that, what’s it doing here? Look! Some cheeky beggar’s actually tied her to the boat!’
They had as well, a thick knotted rope adding to the Queen Maudie ’s moorings.
Noah moved quickly towards the donkey, as he’d spotted something, a folded scrap of paper tucked into the brim of the hat.
He reached for it, only to be nudged forcibly away by the donkey’s head.
‘Leave off, will you?’ Noah tutted, not wanting to admit he was a little scared of the power in the beast. ‘Or I’ll feed you to his snake.’
‘Think even Delilah would struggle to eat him in one go... though she’d probably give it a whirl.’
Clem though was running out of patience. ‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ she huffed, and marched purposefully up to the donkey’s head, before repeatedly blowing gently up its nose.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ said Big Col, who’d never seen anything so bizarre in his life, and he owned a python.
‘It calms them,’ she said, without looking away, ‘makes them realise you aren’t a threat, but a friend.’ Big Col laughed, and Noah might have too, if it hadn’t worked enough to let him get at the piece of paper without further assault.
‘What does it say?’ asked Big Col, suddenly all interested.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Noah said to them both.
‘Oh, with what I’ve agreed to today, I think you’d be surprised,’ Clem replied.
‘It says, I hear you’re saving animals. Here’s another for your collection. His name is Samson. He likes eating grass.’
‘Is that it?’
Noah turned the paper over and found nothing. ‘They were hardly going to leave an address, were they?’
‘No name either?’
‘No, but the strange thing is, it doesn’t look like a child wrote it, see?’
It was true, there was no spidery writing, just the clear copperplate hand of an adult.
‘What are we supposed to do with him?’ Clem asked. ‘We can’t take him as well!’
She felt sure Noah would agree with her. No one in their right mind would add a straw-hatted donkey into the equation.
But she was wrong.
‘Course, we can,’ said Noah with a smile. ‘We can’t just abandon it here.’
‘Why not? You read the note. Samson’s clearly not fussy about a varied diet, and there’s enough grass in Wapping Woods to last him for months. Let’s take him there. We do not need to take him on the boat with us!’
But Noah wasn’t having any of it. ‘Leave him here and this donkey won’t live a week. Target as big as him, Hitler will snuff him out on his first raid. That what you want, Clem?’
‘Of course it’s not.’
‘But that’s what will happen if we leave him here. It’d be as bad as abandoning Frank, or Winn.’
‘Or Delilah,’ added big Col, in what he (mistakenly) thought was a helpful interruption.
‘So, what you’re saying,’ Clem said, wanting to make sure she’d fully understood, ‘is that you think we should tempt this huge, surly donkey onboard your dad’s decrepit ship and sail it down the Thames, along with two dogs and the world’s hungriest python?’
‘It’s a boat, not a ship,’ shrugged Noah. ‘And yes, I do. I don’t see what could possibly go wrong.’
Clem at that point should have gone home. But she didn’t, of course she didn’t.
‘You do realise, don’t you, Noah, that the donkey’s called Samson and the snake’s called Delilah?’
‘Er... yeah. So?’
‘You never did read the Bible, did you?’
He shook his head. ‘Course I didn’t. None of it’s true. It’s all just stories, isn’t it?’
For once, Clem really hoped that her best friend was right.
22
There are many moments in life when books are priceless, fonts of knowledge and wisdom.
But this was not one of those times. Clem’s walls were lined with huge tomes, but Noah knew with certainty that none of them included a chapter on how to lead a stubborn donkey onboard a riverboat.
So the children improvised. They had to, as Samson made it clear very quickly that a sailor’s life was not for him. He was perfectly happy on dry land. The children began by trying to lead him down the gangplank, but soon gave up when Samson didn’t blink, let alone clip clop onboard. They offered handfuls of weeds and dandelions that they collected from a nearby stretch of wasteland, but sadly those lacked the flavour or freshness needed to tempt him from his spot. Big Col suggested slapping his rump with a stick, but when Noah handed him a weapon he strangely went off the idea. Nothing to do with the size of his rear legs of course, and the fact that to hit him, Big Col would have to stand in range.
In the end, they paused, frustrated and defeated.
‘I’m hungry,’ Noah said.
‘Me too,’ agreed Big Col.
‘We can’t eat yet,’ warned Clem. ‘Who knows how long the rations will have to last. And we’ve the animals to feed.’
‘I’m thirsty too,’ Big Col added unhelpfully.
Noah was tempted to point at the river and tell him to help himself, but thought better of it.
Instead he told Big Col that Dad kept a tank of water in the cabin for brewing tea. It was hardly fresh, but it was cleaner than the Thames at least.
Clem plodded up the gangplank after him, fetched a tin of sardines from her coat pocket and pierced it with her penknife, before swinging her legs over the side of the boat.
‘Come here, Frank,’ she cooed, ‘lunchtime.’
But it wasn’t the slow padding of the dog’s aching paws that filled her ears. One whiff of briny fish was all Samson needed to galvanise him into action. All of a sudden, the only place he wanted to be was onboard the Queen Maudie, and he practically galloped up the gangplank, making the boat wobble furiously, almost knocking Clem overboard.
‘Don’t move, Clem!’ shouted Noah, wild-eyed with excitement.
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Clem shouted, as she backed away from Samson. He had the look of a donkey who would devour her hand whole so as not to miss a scrap of sardine.
‘Lead him to the bow,’ Noah went on. ‘In front of the captain’s cab.’
Clem did as instructed, though it was far from easy. Samson’s heavy hooves made the deck pitch and sway as though the boat were already navigating the fiercest of seas.
Clem had heard of tempting animals with carrots and sticks, but frankly this was ridiculous, and she was nothing but relieved when the donkey finally sucked up the fish from her palm before rooting in her pockets for more.
‘Tie him up, will you?’ she told the boys, and Noah did the honours, grinning from ear to ear.
‘There you go,’ he said, ‘Not so bad, was it?’
‘Apart from my palm’s covered in donkey drool, no.’
‘Well wash it quickly, will you? Now Samson’s onboard we should get moving, before he changes his mind.’
‘That’s not the only thing that needs washing,’ said Clem. ‘The cabin stinks after what happened last night.’
‘Well, there’s buckets and a cloth over there. You and him will have to sort that out cos I’m the only one who knows how to sail Maudie, aren’t I?’ He gestured to Big Col and then raced back into the small captain’s cab, which was little more than a tiny wooden shed with a wheel and hole where a window once sat.
‘You lazy git. All right, I’ll clean up down there, Noah Price,’ Clem shouted after him. ‘But that’s it, do you hear? I’m not on this trip to be your skivvy!’
Noah chuckled. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now, how did Dad do this again?’ But he said it too loudly and Big Col heard through the broken window and was far from impressed.
‘You don’t know how to start up this wreck?’ he shouted. ‘You are kidding me!’
‘You know you can get off if you want to?’ Noah spat back. ‘I don’t actually remember anyone inviting you along.’
‘Yeah well, go on then, try and send me packing. Because I’ll tell you something, you’re going to need me at some point along the way. Couple of wimps like you.’
There were plenty of things that Noah could’ve said to that, but knowing how long a broken nose took to stop bleeding, he said none of them, his attention turning to Winn, who had appeared at his feet, with something unexpected in her jaw.
‘What’s that girl?’ he asked, before grinning widely.
Dad’s captain hat. A shabby peaked affair that he’d inherited when he purchased the boat. Dad loved it. He wore it every second he was onboard, whether the boat was moving or not. So wearing it now? Well, it felt good. Kept Dad close.
Not that the other two saw it the same way.
‘Oh that’s better,’ scoffed Big Col. ‘No doubt in my head now that you can steer this wreck.’
‘Unless that hat contains magical navigational powers, Noah, I think we should start with a map, don’t you?’ added Clem.
