But she was one step ahead of me. I felt the gun press against the back of my neck. My freedom of manoeuvre reduced. I froze.
‘If you’re on our side,’ I said, ‘and you get into trouble, send word. I’ll come for you. Do whatever it takes.’
‘Out of the boat,’ she said.
I slipped out, and the tidal waters took me, pulling me down, grabbing at my clothes. I kicked for the surface,and when I felt air on my face, the boat was already ten yards away.
I swam for the bank, my clothes dragging like an anchor. Another ten yards from the boat, a sliding noise behind me, a splash. Miriam, consigned to the deep. Then the creak of oars.
‘Say goodbye to the children,’ she said, her voice carrying across the water.
I stopped swimming. I should follow her. Catch up. Stop her.
‘Tell them I’m sorry,’ she said.
Then all I heard was the rhythmic splash and pull of the oars, and the roar of the distant waves.
90
The report came through from the War Ag. We’d passed with flying colours. There’d been a few comments on areas for improvement which had Bill Taylor fuming, but it was an excuse for celebration, time to enjoy what we’d all achieved.
We set out a marquee in the meadow. A band, a barrel of beer. Pushed the boat out. Everyone who’d helped with the harvest was there.
Almost everyone.
Mum made a cake, one of many. The women brought sandwiches and the men brought jugs of home-brewed drinks. Doc, still waiting to receive his mobilisation orders, tended bar. We sat on picnic rugs on the grass, as the invasion took place above our heads.
The sky was an abstract painting of swirling white lines. The first day had been gripping. The second day a curiosity. Now, on day five, it was scenery. According to the papers, the bombers’ targets had been our airfields at the start, as German High Command had sought to neutralise our air power, but yesterday the headlines had changed – civilian targets bombed. The horror we’d all been expecting since the first day of the war had finally arrived.
‘There’s another one,’ Frankie said, pointing at a growing shape in the sky to the south, over the Downs. A parachute. A pilot, who’d bailed out before his plane hit the ground.
Frankie pulled out a notebook from his gas mask box. He kept score as best he could. He was up to eight parachutes and ten planes down, all within sight of our farm. How many more tally marks would go in his little book before the end? How many more years of war? Frankie was ten. Would we still be fighting by the time he was old enough to do his bit?
I stood up, brushing crumbs from my trousers, and shook hands with a new arrival. Milosz, the Polish soldier. He was wearing a crisp, new army uniform, and had a young lady on his arm.
‘They took you on?’ I asked.
‘They said they could do with the manpower.’ He looked up at the sky and spoke quietly. ‘It’s not going so good as they say on the BBC.’
I smiled at the young lady on his arm.
‘Miss,’ I said.
‘This is Edith,’ Milosz said. ‘Edith, my friend John Cook. Edith’s a barmaid. She says I’m her favourite customer.’
‘What doyoudo, Mr Cook?’ she asked.
‘I’m a farmer,’ I said.
‘Don’t you want to get more involved?’ she asked. ‘Do your bit?’
I squinted in the sun and smiled.
‘I’ll leave that to the young chaps,’ I said, clapping Milosz on the arm. ‘Anyway, us farmers are going to win this war, didn’t you know?’
91
The art deco house was locked up. The lawn was bare, the garden furniture and games gone, like a stage after closing night, the set struck within hours of the performance.
