The crowd were starting to push forward again. The gap where Ben had gone was starting to close up. If I didn't go now, I'd never find him. I went for it.
I was smaller than him. It meant I could squeeze through smaller gaps, but it was harder to push through if there wasn't a gap to squeeze into. At first, I could see Ben ahead of me, but then he got too far ahead of me and I couldn't see him anymore. I got worried that I would get lost, and then I'd have no-one at all.
I heard the planes come back. I was surrounded by grown-ups, so I couldn't see them, but I could hear them whooshing over-head. And they were firing, and I could hear people screaming, and I knew that one of them was firing at the crowd. I don't know why he'd do that, as we weren't hurting anyone, but the other plane had done the same thing to us before, on our way to Canterbury.
People started pushing back the way they had come. I wanted to keep going forward, to see what was happening with the boat, but they were pushing and shoving me, and I fell over. Someone tripped over me, and someone else stood on my hand as I was trying to get up. I was scared that I was going to get squashed. I managed to get up, but was knocked over again straightaway. And then Ben was there, pulling me up, and dragging me away from them.
We went and stood by the harbour railings, and held on tightly while everyone went by (just in case someone knocked us into the water). I heard someone screaming out a girl's name (I can't remember which one now), and I knew that Nan would probably be screaming our names, but I couldn't hear her in all the noise.
There was more firing, and another boom, but it was further away now.
It seemed like we were waiting ages, while everyone was pushing past us. I think the planes were going, but people were still running everywhere. I think they were worried that they would come back again.
As people left, there was much more room so we ran closer to the beach to get a better look. There was a warship in the sea. Not just a boat; a proper warship. I had seen them before; in films, and when we went to London there had been one in the river you could look around if you pay for it.
There were three boats in the sea, close to the beach. I think they had come from the warship. Two of them were at our end of the beach, and people had swam out and were getting on them. There were loads of people in the sea, too many for the boats to hold.
The other boat - much bigger than the first two - was at the far end of the beach. There were people getting on it; they all looked like soldiers. Other people were trying to get on the boat, too, but they weren't letting them on. That boat must have been for soldiers only, I think. Every time someone tried to get on the boat, they were pushing them away, unless they had a uniform on.
One of the boats at our end of the beach was full now. It started going back to the warship.
"Let's get on the other one," said Ben. "Before it goes."
"We can't. Nan's not here."
We watched as more people climbed on the boat. The other one - the one with the soldiers on it - started going back to the ship as well.
And then the last boat was full too, and it turned round and it was heading away from us. All three boats were full, and leaving, and we were left behind.
"Do you think they'll come back?" I asked him.
He didn't answer me.
People were coming back to the beach. I think they had seen that the planes were gone, and they wanted to come back to get on the boats. I was worried that we would be stuck on the beach, away from Nan, so we walked back to her before it got really busy again.
We hadn't gone very far before we saw men and ladies lying on the ground. They were bleeding. I wasn't sure if they were dead or not. You can tell by looking at their eyes to see if they are staring, and the first one I saw looked like that, but I didn't want to look at the others in case they were too. One of them had their leg bent up at a funny angle as well.
"What happened to them?" I asked Ben. "Were they shot by the plane?"
"Trampled."
We went back to where we had left Nan. She wasn't there. We thought that maybe she had gone to look for us, which would have been bad as it was going to be really hard to find her again, now all the people were coming back to the beach.
But then we saw her.
On the ground.
Trampled.
#
She was at the bottom of the hill where we had been sitting earlier, before the ship came. Her glasses had been knocked off. She was lying there, all curled up, like babies before they are born. She wasn't moving.
"Nan! Nan!"
We tried to shake her awake. It didn't help that people were walking past us all the time - one man even stepped over her - and we were worried that we might get trampled as well, but we didn't.
"Nan!"
She wasn't moving.
"Is she dead?"
Ben shrugged. He looked upset, because he didn't know what to do. "I don't know."
"You put a mirror by her mouth and see if it gets steamed up." I'd seen that on TV. It's the best way to tell.
"Where am I going to get a mirror?"
"Do you want me to go and look for one?"
"No."
He put his hand near her mouth. I think it must have done the same trick as the mirror, as he smiled a little and told me that she was still alive.
"When will she be alright again?"
"I don't know."
"Does she need a doctor?"
"I think so."
"How do we find a doctor?"
"Look, I don't know, okay? I keep telling you that. There aren't any doctors any more. Not here. Maybe in London, but not here."
"Maybe Valerie can help us? The Russians will have doctors."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
I didn't have any more questions to ask.
I wanted to pull Nan up the hill so people didn't keep stepping over her - she was a lot smaller than Mum, so I think we could have dragged her if we tried - but Ben said that he didn't think we should move her in case we made her worse. So we just sat there, with people walking all around her, hoping that she would wake up and look after us again.
I thought that maybe one of the grown-ups might help, but no-one did. It was like we weren't even there. A couple of times, I saw people looking, but they looked away when they saw me looking back.
Ben went through her pockets.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting her money."
"You can't do that! That's stealing!"
"She's our Nan. I'm just looking after it for her."
"Why?"
"In case she doesn't wake up. We need it, Jack. We need it to get out of here."
"No we don't. Those men on the boats didn't ask for any money. They'll take us to France for free."
"We're not getting on those boats. Even if they come back three times, ten times, a hundred times, there's too many people here. They're bigger than us. We can't get on."
"And we can't leave Nan behind anyway."
"Hmm."
He didn't look too sure about that, so I said it again. "Ben, we're not leaving Nan behind."
"What if she's dead?"
"Don't say that. She's not dead. You said she wasn't dead. She's just sleeping."
"What if she doesn't wake up?"
"People always wake up when they're asleep. Don't you know anything?"
"But what if she doesn't?"
I didn't answer him. I didn't want to talk about it anymore. Nan had to wake up. I was tired of us two looking after each other. We couldn't have come all this way to find her, only to lose her again. It wouldn't have been fair.
"Jack? What if she doesn't?"
"I don't want to talk about it? You're just being mean."
"I'm not."
"You are. This is our fault. We went away and left her on her own, and now she's sleeping and you're saying that she won't wake up, but she's got to wake up. She wouldn't leave us on our own again."
"It
's not our fault."
"It is!"
Ben looked down, which I knew meant that he thought that it was our fault, even if he was saying that it wasn't. "I can't keep taking the blame for everything."
And then he started crying, and I felt really mean for saying what I said. I tried to give him a hug from the other side of Nan, but I couldn't reach him properly and when I walked round to him he didn't want a hug anyway.
He pushed me away.
"I'm alright."
"I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for."
He had put her purse in his pocket. I asked him how much was in it, and he shrugged and told me he didn't know. He said he couldn't open it here, not with all these people around, in case they saw it and took it from us. Later on, if he had the chance, he would give me half so that if one of us lost their money then the other one would still have some. Dad used to do that with our holiday money, splitting it with Mum so they had half each, but then they would argue as Mum always spent her half much quicker than him.
Nan made little noises later on, like she was dreaming a bad dream, but she still wasn't moving. I stroked her head for a little while, hoping that that might help, and I told her that I loved her and that I hoped she would wake up soon. And I also put my hand in front of her mouth every ten minutes by my watch, to make sure she was still breathing (which she was).
I hoped that Ben was wrong, and that she would wake up again. I knew he was right, though. It was going to be really hard for us two to get on the boats if they came back. But if we had to drag Nan after us, it was going to be impossible.
#
The boats did come back. Every time they came, we could hear the people in the crowd shouting and see them pushing each other to get there first. The planes didn't come back, though, which was good because I didn't want us to get trampled like Nan.
I could see some people jumping down into the sea from the pier. I think they were going to try to swim from there so they didn't have to get past the crowds on the beach, but it was a long swim and Ben said that by the time they reached the boats they would be full up anyway with people from the beach.
Nan started breathing heavily, and I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it wasn't very nice to listen to.
I know that you'll think this sounds horrible, but we got bored. It's not that we didn't care about Nan - we did, ever so much - but we were used to doing something, or going somewhere, and just sitting there while everyone else tried to get on the boats was awful. So Ben and I took it in turns to walk up the hill on to the cliff-top, where we could look down on to the beach and see what was going on.
There were four boats now, going backwards and forwards, some near the ship and some near the beach. The beach was still full of people. Some of them were swimming out towards the boats. Other people were just standing there in the water, as if they were going for a paddle; I guess they couldn't swim. That must have been really bad for them; standing there, so close to the boats, but not being able to reach them.
I remember seeing one family standing in the sea. There was a man and a woman. The man was holding a little boy or girl (I wasn't sure which from up there), and the lady was holding another boy's hand, and the boy was holding a cat! The cat was wriggling to get down; I don't think he liked the sea! And I thought that that could be us. Not you and me, I don't mean that. I mean me, and Ben, and Mum and Dad. The children looked the same ages as me and Ben. That could have been us, with Mum and Dad still with us, and I thought that if they dumped the cat they could probably have got on one of the boats and gone to France and been safe.
And then I thought that if we dumped Nan, then me and Ben could maybe catch a boat, but then I felt really guilty, because we loved Nan, and it wasn't her fault she was ill. It was my fault, and Ben's fault, for not looking after her and letting her get trampled.
And she was all we had left of Mum.
#
The boats stopped coming.
The ship left.
We could hear people talking. They were saying that maybe that was the last chance they had to get away and they'd missed it. Some people left the beach; I don't know where they went, as there was nowhere else to go. Most people stayed.
Some people near me were arguing whether they should keep on trying to get to France. Maybe it was best just to wait for the Russians to turn up, and do what they said. At least there would be order, they said. Maybe they could even go back home. Things would be different, but at least they wouldn't have to drown trying to catch a boat when the people on the boat probably weren't any safer than the people who were left behind.
I talked to Ben about that when he came back from the cliff-top. Maybe we should stay? But he said "no", we shouldn't. What was the point of being allowed back home, if we were dead with starvation and thirst by the time that happened? He looked at me in a funny way when he was saying that, as if I was hungrier and thirstier than him, but I think we must have been both the same. He said we had to get to France or London - London would be where the war-ship was going, he thought - and as it was too far to walk to London then that only left France by boat.
I knew he was right. We hadn't eaten anything for a long time. Some lady gave us a tiny bit of drink each when she saw we were on our own, but it was more like washing our tongues than actually drinking anything as she held the bottle to make sure we didn't drink too much. She had her own family to look after. I would have done the same if it was me.
More planes flew by not long after the ship had disappeared over the horizon, and we could hear more firing but we didn't know whether they sank it or not as we couldn't see what was going on. The planes didn't come back, so maybe it got away. I like to think it did.
And then Ben told me he was going.
"No! You can't go!"
"I have to. We're never going to get away on this beach. I'll go and find another boat, somewhere else, somewhere quieter. We've got Nan's money (he whispered that bit, so no-one else could hear). We just have to find somewhere without so many people around."
"I'll come with you, then."
"You have to stay here to look after Nan."
"She'll be alright for five minutes."
"I'll be longer than five minutes. I might be gone for hours. Maybe a whole day. I don't know how long."
"No. Please don't leave me here alone."
"You're not alone. Nan'll be with you."
"But she can't look after me. Anyway, she might die. You have to stay here, and help me look after her. I can't do it all on my own."
"Jack, please. I've got to go, can't you see that? We'll die here if I don't."
I knew he was right. I knew he had to go, to try and find a boat. It was our only chance. But I really, really didn't want him to leave me alone with Nan.
I tried one last time. "What if the ship comes back? Or a bigger ship, with lots of boats, and you're not here? Then we all miss out. You should stay here. Just another day, and see what happens." I was trying to stall him, like Dad used to do when he was losing an argument.
"You haven't got another day."
"What? What do you mean?"
"Look at you."
"What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing's wrong with you. You just look really thin, and really ill, and really scared."
"I'm scared because you're going."
"I have to."
He stood up, and he started walking off.
"But what if the ship comes back?" I said again. It was the only argument I had left.
"Get on it," he called out over his shoulder.
"I'm not getting on it without you!" What a stupid thing for him to say!
But he kept walking. I wanted to run after him, even though it meant leaving Nan. I couldn't bear being left behind. And what if something happened to him without me to look after him? We should stay together; that was the only thing I was sure of. But he kept walking all the same, and all of a sudden I didn't
have the energy to chase after him.
I sat down next to Nan, and held her hand for company. I watched Ben walking up the hill, getting further away. And then he was round the bend in the road, and I couldn't see him anymore, and I was all on my own (except for Nan, but I couldn't really count her as she was still asleep).
I sat there, hoping he would change his mind and come back. He didn't. I had a really strong feeling that he wouldn't come back ever, but that time I was wrong (because he did).
I laid down next to Nan, still holding her hand. I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, even though it was still daytime. I was so tired, I didn't even care that I was hungry and thirsty anymore. I just felt that I wanted to sleep or cry, and I didn't really care which. It was all too much, and without Ben there it was worse still.
I woke up every so often, but dozed right back off again. Nan's breathing was getting louder (I think that was what was waking me up), and she sounded like there wasn't enough oxygen, even though there was. Every time I woke up, I knew that I should check on her to see if there was anything I could do for her, but I couldn't face it. I knew how cross Ben would be if anything happened to her while I was asleep, but somehow it didn't seem to matter anymore. So I dozed off again.
One time I woke up, it was dark. I lifted up my head to look around, but Ben wasn't back yet. Nan was quiet again. I went back to sleep.
And then it was day again, and he still wasn't there. It was time to get up; I could see people walking around, and someone nearly tripped over me. But I didn't have the energy to move. I needed the toilet a little bit, but not enough for me to get up. I guess that not drinking anything meant that I wasn't as desperate as I usually am in the mornings.
When I woke up the next time, it was because someone was shaking me awake. I ignored them at first. It was like I didn't have enough energy to open my eyes and face the world. But they kept shaking me, and I opened my eyes to make them stop.
It was Ben.
"Are you alright?"
"No," I told him. "I'm tired."
"I've found someone. Someone with a boat."
"A boat?"
He shushed me, and looked around. I don't think he wanted anyone else to hear him. He leant in close to me. "I've got some soda water, too."
The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here Page 17
