‘Didn’t know how to come home,’ Cook said.
Reynolds paused, like he was considering a wise-crack, but held his tongue.
‘Do you need any help?’ a voice from above. It was Beaumont, looking down into the hole. Reynolds met Cook’s eye, and winked. He threw the detonator up to Beaumont.
‘You want to be careful with that,’ Reynolds said, ‘take your hand off if it wants to.’
28
When the flashbulb popped, half the people in the crowd flinched. Frankie, face still smeared with grime, had been posed on a pile of rubble. A smart young man in a suit had handed him a Union Jack on a stick and told him to wave it.
Half the crowd had flags. Most held them listlessly by their sides. A few got into the spirit, cheering when Churchill stepped from his car. A flying visit, surveying the damage. More than a few onlookers had things to say under their breath. The early editions of the papers had told one version of the story. The docks had been the target. The rest of London had been largely untouched.
Someone passed Cook a paper. The front page was dominated by a picture of Tower Bridge, a column of smoke behind it.
COWARDLY RAID ON LONDON DOCKS
FEW CASUALTIES
LONDON CAN TAKE IT!
Cook looked at the crowd, most of whom sullenly watched Churchill as he made his inspection. London may or may not have had an opinion on whether it could take it, but the islanders knew what taking it meant. The island was finished.
‘Where are we going to go?’ a brave voice rang out. A uniformed police constable took a step towards the trouble-maker, and the bravery evaporated.
Churchill returned to the safety of his armoured car. A wise move, Cook thought. He’d been curious to see the great man in person. He looked tired. Must have spent the night waiting for the invasion, as they all had.
One thing was certain, another few nights like the one they’d just survived, and there wouldn’t be much left to invade.
29
Cook and Frankie sat on the train, Cook facing the direction of travel. The boy opposite.
The window was an excuse not to talk, a moving picture constantly evolving as the stations passed by. First the suburban stops, then the tunnel under the North Downs. Then a succession of country towns. Oxted, Hever, Eridge, Crowborough, Buxted, a litany that had seen Cook through a lifetime.
Rabbits scattered as the train passed. The fields were stubble, the harvest finished and the new farming year not yet underway. Cook was glad to see defensive fortifications being built. A line of concrete bunkers – octagonal shape, gun slits facing south. He was disappointed, but not surprised, to see they were putting them in the wrong place. Directly in the line of attack. Better off to the side, hidden, set up for enfilading fire, diagonally across the line. Cook wouldn’t want to be the poor mug sitting in one of those buildings, firing his Bren gun at an advancing Panzer. Waiting for the darkness as he looked down the length of the tank’s gun. Man versus artillery. They’d tried that in the last war. Proof of man’s inability to learn from experience.
They walked up the lane, past the oast-house, the quiet a physical presence after the sirens and the bombs. London was finished. All the experts had proven it, in the run up to the war. Tons of explosives per square mile. Populationdensity. The tolerance of a population to remain sane under intense bombardment. They’d taken everything they’d learnt from the Western Front, applied it to a civilian population, and the results had been clear. No point in wasting too much time and money on bomb shelters. Better to go straight to the finish line. Invest in mental hospitals for the insane, and coffins for the dead.
Presumably the men in charge had other plans. Plans they kept quiet. A new capital. Edinburgh perhaps. Or Canada. Take the government, the royal family, the gold, the scientists – get them all safely across the Atlantic. A far more defensible position, great oceans on both sides. Neutral America to the south. Let Hitler do his worst with London.
Not what Cook would have chosen, if he’d been asked. But men like Cook were never asked. They were told.
They climbed over the stile, onto Cook’s land. Cook breathed it in. The dry soil in the warm evening air. Smelt like home.
They stopped in the shadow of an ancient oak as a small aeroplane flew low overhead. Cook put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
They waited, listening to the plane. Cook didn’t think they were in any danger, but better safe than sorry. As the sound of the plane receded, he stepped out from the cover of the tree and scoured the sky, but in the deep blue of the gathering evening it was like looking for a dark needle in a dark haystack. One of ours, he hoped, returning from France. If it was up to him, they’d be dropping supplies and people, building up a network of operatives. People like him who could disappear into the countryside, keep away from the German occupiers, make a nuisance of themselves. Unlikely to turn the tide of the war, but enough to tie up German resources. Make it costly to keep France occupied.
A fox barked, and Cook heard a rustle in the undergrowth. A rabbit, making sure it wasn’t too far from its burrow.
Going to London had been a mistake.
*
Mum was watching for them, Cook could see her face in the kitchen window, looking out across the field. She knew how long it took from the station to the farm. Would have been standing there seventeen minutes after the arrival of every train that day. She’d had plenty of practice during the last war. Waiting for her son to come home. That, or a telegram. And now there was the boy, too. One more person to worry about.
She fussed over them both, put a plate of bread and jam on the table, Frankie’s favourite. Two mugs of tea, sugar for Frankie. Uncle Nob took his tea by the fire. Elizabeth hovered in the corner. They’d have been waiting just as much as Mum. Fearing the worst.
