Tea was sausages and mash, with fried tomatoes from the kitchen garden. The sausages had been getting worse, more gristle than edible meat. I made a show of eating every bite, aware I was being watched by Elizabeth and Frankie. Important to set the right tone and all that.
‘This is the BBC,’ the radio newsreader announced. We’d got into the habit of listening to the radio as we ate. Some people thought it common, preferring to keep the receiver in the sitting room, covered with lace, next to a picture of the King. I didn’t care what other people thought, and the wireless was one-way communication, meaning the man at the BBC was unaware he was coming to us in our kitchen, while we were eating our tea.
‘The French premier Paul Reynaud has announced that there will be no defence of Paris. In the early hours of this morning, German troops marched into the French capital, and met no resistance, following yesterday’s declaration by the city’s French military governor General Héring that Paris was declared an open city, a move he justified as the best decision for the nation, a tactical move to protect the city’s ancient monuments.’
Mum looked at me in disbelief. I shared her shock. Four million of our young men had died defending France, barely twenty years earlier. Now the French had handed over their capital city to the Germans and fled. It was hard to stomach.
The newsreader continued, ‘The French government is retreating to the southern city of Bordeaux. It’s estimated that up to eight million citizens of Belgium, France and the Netherlands have left their homes in the face of the German army’s swift advance, the largest mass migration in the
history of Europe.’
I looked at Uncle Nob, in his grimy armchair by the fire, his plate on his lap, struggling to cut his sausages with hands that never stopped shaking. What did he think of the news? Did he hear it? Or was he still hearing the shells pounding the trench where he lay, cowering, waiting for the one with his name on it. Four days of artillery before each big push. Three million shells each time. The silence that could mean only one thing. Climb out of the mud to claw your way through the corpses of your brothers, towards the machine-guns.
‘You win every fight you don’t have,’ I said. It was the sort of thing Blakeney, my old CO, would have said. As with all such aphorisms, it was true sometimes, and useless at others. This time it felt empty. With Paris fallen, London would be next. I knew how I’d feel when the time came. I pictured an armoured division advancing on my farm, parachutists falling out of the sky, Mum and Uncle Nob and the children cowering behind me.
‘Churchill’s going to have some words about that,’ Mum said.
‘We’ll fight them on the beaches,’ Frankie said, parroting Churchill’s recent speech. It had been a fine speech, but I’d seen those beaches. A lot of coastline to defend for a country that had been placing all its bets on the fighting being in France.
‘Just us, then,’ Mum said, with a grim sense of satisfaction. Just us. No French allies to worry about offending.No false hopes of white knights riding to the rescue. Backs to the wall, that kind of thing.
I didn’t share her optimism. We’d been banking on the French tying up the Germans for the summer, digging in around Paris, slowing down the advance. Now there was no advance. No front line. No division of Europe into us and them. It was all them, all the way to the Channel.
‘Can I have another sausage please?’ It was Frankie. The first time he’d ever asked for more.
Elizabeth pushed a sausage from her plate to Frankie’s. Seemed the boy had undergone a sudden change of heart. Until now he’d been at great pains to let us know they made him gag.
‘What are you going to eat?’ I asked Elizabeth, noting her untouched plate of food.
‘Not hungry,’ she said. I was worried about her. Since she’d come to live with us, she’d been slipping further and further into a fog.
Frankie’s arm caught my eye. He was a fidgety boy at the best of times, but there was something about the way he slipped it under the table.
‘Frankie?’ I looked at him squarely, searching his face. He glared back at me.
‘What are you doing?’
He flushed red, guilt written all over his face.
14
We strode out across the fields, towards the woods, Frankie reluctantly leading, nervously juggling a battered old cricket ball. Me following. Elizabeth dawdling behind.
‘I told them I’d keep it a secret,’ Frankie said, turning back to me.
‘We’re going for an evening walk,’ I said. ‘You haven’t said anything to betray your confidence.’
‘We should have brought a weapon,’ Elizabeth said, quietly.
‘I don’t need a weapon on my own land,’ I said. But I felt foolish. She was right. Things were changing.
Frankie dropped back as we reached the woods. I went first, stepping across the drainage ditch at the edge of the field, and gingerly climbing through the barbed-wire fence. The woods were old, hardwoods, a mix of oak, birch and chestnut, and in the June heat the green canopy was a shield against the evening sky. Centuries of leaf mould made the going springy underfoot.
I looked to Frankie for directions, and he pointed, but stayed behind me, Elizabeth behind him.
I moved quietly, carefully, each footfall on leaves, avoiding any sticks that might snap and announce my presence. A young birch blocked my way, and I gently held back a branch of quivering leaves as I stepped past. I smelt woodsmoke, and heard voices.
Three men had made camp. Two lay on the ground, one sat on a log, tending to a small fire. A tin kettle hung over the fire and the man on the log held an enamelled mug. The mug was filthy and dented, like it had been through a lot. The man looked worse. His eyes were hollows. His hands shook and he watched the flames of the small fire as if he was looking for answers.
