by Milly Adams
‘No manners on the bloody hose. You should know that.’
They stood together, working the hoses as initially the water seemed to feed the flames, not douse them, but in the end, the hose would win. It was hypnotic, and Steve was glad, because when this was over he’d have to make the trip to Dodge’s missus. He slid to thoughts of Sylvia, instead. He wondered if she felt a bit different too, adrift, always hoping they wouldn’t upset their friends, afraid of losing them, and wanting someone to be loyal to when perhaps they should be looking for someone who was loyal to them.
Dodge had been loyal, yes, he had, but Steve had realised that long ago, just hadn’t put it into words. Some friends though … Well, some friends seemed to guess you were scared they’d drift away, and asked more and more of you. But not Dodge, not the watch, not Harry his band mate, and not Sylvia; the two of them were just together, and she was the person he hadn’t even known he’d been looking for, his ‘someone’, his ‘everyone’. Just like that, out of nowhere – or out of a puff of smoke, as Dodge had said, as he’d puffed away at his Woodbine.
The sub came up. ‘Bertram and Pete are taking over your ’oses, you two. Go and have some cocoa. The canteen women are here; bloody angels, they are.’
Bertram took Steve’s hose. ‘Off you go, lad,’ he said. ‘They’ve found Dodge. Best his missus doesn’t see him, so the sub’s done the identification.’
Steve walked to the canteen that had been set up, Alfie’s arm slung over his shoulder. He thanked the elderly women, held the mug between two hands and drank, feeling the steam of the drink on his scorched face, which had a heat blister the size of a grape. Still Alfie stayed close, but that’s what the watch did, looked after their own, just as the sub had looked after Dodge’s missus.
Yes, there were some things best not seen, but she’d be told that Dodge had saved countless lives and was one of the best. But what should he, Steve, say to her? That Dodge had been like a dad to him and his death was like a dagger to his heart? Did that sound stupid? Well, it was bloody well true.
He stared at the dregs of the cocoa. Alfie nudged him, ‘Back to work, eh? We still got a fire to douse, whatever else ’appens.’
They walked back, and again Alfie slung his arm round Steve, who could still taste the cocoa, though the lump in his throat seemed too large for him to have swallowed any. But the world never stopped. Someone just came and put his arm across your shoulders, and you drank cocoa and got on with the job, knowing you were not alone.
Steve took his hose back from Bertram, and Alfie took his from Pete. Pete shouted above the roar of the fire, and the clatter and crash of the emergency vehicles, ‘It’s on the wane. Might not be an all-nighter.’
Bertram slapped his back. ‘Not an all-nighter, eh? Back before dawn? Stranger things have happened, old son.’ Bertram was from Westminster School, a toff down to his boots, and a good sort. He strode away, heading for the next hoses to relieve. Pete laughed, his teeth white in the grime of his face. ‘Too true, me old son.’ He winked at Alfie and Steve, and followed.
As Steve played the hose on the top flight of windows, from which flames licked, he was thinking of his letter to Sylvia. He wasn’t sure if he should have written, but he had to try to build something with her. Would she reply? Well, it was done now and in the post. He moved his hose further to the left, knowing he’d have to wait and see but in his bruised heart he hoped she’d welcome it.
Chapter 13
The recuperation continues at Howard House
It was Wednesday, the fourth day of their Dorset recuperation and at last the three girls felt like walking from the garden out to the ha-ha. Their joints seemed looser and their stitches were tightening, which Mrs Holmes had decreed meant that they were healing. Dr Havers had appeared again this morning and agreed with her.
Polly snorted, ‘But how could he not?’ They were all smiling as they walked along one side of the ha-ha while a two-man patrol marched the opposite way along the other, their eyes probing the fields and their whistles swinging round their necks.
‘Hey, you.’ Henry’s voice reached them. The patrol halted. ‘So sorry, chaps,’ he shouted again. ‘Not you. Do continue your patrol if you will, and thanks indeed for it. It’s you girls we’re after; just wait for us oldies.’
Henry, Thomas and Simon Rogers were following the girls, with walking sticks tucked under their arms. ‘For the sticky bits,’ Rogers muttered as they reached them. They each carried a letter. Thomas Holmes said, ‘We thought we should bring your letters to you, or you’d give us a roasting on your return.’
Verity looked at the other two, then at the men. ‘Could it be that you were actually sent by a trio of women, who’d give you a roasting if you didn’t reach us?’
‘Oh, I say,’ said her father, as Thomas and Rogers grinned, and agreed, ‘Got it in one.’
They handed over the letters and walked along while the girls tore the envelopes open. They read as they walked, and Sylvia smiled, ‘Dear Coppernob,’ Steve had written. His handwriting seemed open-hearted with its rounded vowels, and strong blue ink. He talked of a long night on duty and said it was nothing unusual. Of his relief that all three of them had not received life-changing wounds, and how he hoped that he would see her at the reunion in a few weeks’ time. He had signed the letter, ‘Yours ever, Steve’.
If only he meant ‘Yours ever’, Sylvia thought, folding the letter carefully and tucking it into her pocket. She thought about the words as she walked along, her hand open against the letter that had his imprint upon it in smoky smudges. He had kept his word and written, and her heart seemed to expand with happiness. She looked up at the sky as a flock of pigeons flew over. The patrol took pot shots and brought a couple down.
They fell on to the sheep field. ‘We should train Pup to “fetch”,’ Polly said.
Henry muttered, ‘Indeed for that’d be a couple for the pot, and two fewer to eat the crops when the time comes.’
Rogers said, ‘I saw you walking Pup round on the lead, girls. How old d’you reckon she is?’
Polly said, ‘Sam, the bloke with the sheepdog, reckons five months or so, which is why, except for tiddling on poor Sylvia on the train, she is more or less house-trained.’
Rogers had taken up position beside Sylvia, who said, ‘She’s a dear little girl, sort of skewbald like Maisie, but gentle. When she licks she doesn’t have a real go, but …’ She stopped as she saw the others grinning at her. Henry said, ‘Ah, so she is already one of the pack. Not sure I’ve ever heard a dog’s lick being quite so closely analysed.’
At the end of the ha-ha they crunched over the drive and opened the gate into the fenced-off wooded area. It had been planted with deciduous trees in the late eighteen, and early nineteen hundreds though conifers had clearly had the impertinence to take root and add some height to the proceedings. Over to the left they heard the sound of footsteps. Henry held up his hand. They stopped. Thomas almost ran to the front to stand next to him, and Rogers pulled Sylvia in front of him, waving the other two girls into a huddle with her, taking up position at the rear with his walking stick up and ready. Henry called, ‘Who’s that?’
‘B patrol, Sergeant.’
Henry looked past the girls to Rogers, who nodded. Thomas called, ‘Carry on, patrol.’
‘Thanks, sir.’ They heard rustling, and then silence except for a few hardy birds that seemed to think it could be spring in spite of the freezing January day.
The whole incident was unsettling, and Verity asked, as they walked on, ‘Mrs B mentioned that the patrols were twofold, Germans and Leon. A “just in case” manoeuvre. Is this right?’
Polly said, ‘Just a minute, is this why you’re walking with us today? After all, it’s the first time we’ve been up to doing anything but pottering about the immediate gardens.’
The three men flushed, looking anywhere but at the girls. Henry tied the scarf tighter around his neck. ‘No, no, don’t be silly. We were told to bring letters.’
The girls didn’t believe him.
Polly said, ‘What about you, Dad?’
‘Along came the postman to the house, and then along came the women into the vegetable garden, bearing the letters with Rogers lassoed by their side, and along came the three of us, just as we said.’
Sylvia muttered, ‘Maybe. So what have you really heard about Leon?’ She could tell there was something wrong, some sort of alertness that surely couldn’t be put down to the war.
The men shook their heads. ‘We’ve heard nothing. Have you?’
The girls looked at one another, and they all walked on. They emerged at the far end of the rear gardens, near the ice house, which was dug deep into the ground. At the bottom of the descending steps was a new wrought-iron gate, with a lock. Verity stared. ‘Why?’ she pointed. ‘It looks like a hiding place, a secure but cold hiding place. And we’re not moving until you come clean. Are we, girls?’
Henry retied his scarf. Verity snapped, ‘Do stop fiddling. You’ve tied it once.’
Henry muttered, like a naughty boy, ‘There’s no need to be sharp.’
‘There appears to be every need,’ retorted his daughter.
Polly wagged her finger at her own father. ‘So, you, Mum and Joe have moved from the cottage to the big house, not to save on the heating or because you’re great chums, but for safety. Is that it?’
‘But we are great chums,’ Henry muttered, kicking at the ground.
‘It’s foolish to keep two kitchens going,’ Thomas added, hands in pockets. He started whistling.
Polly went to stand in front of him. ‘You only ever whistle when you’re caught out. Remember the time you’d forgotten Mum’s birthday and picked flowers from Dick’s allotment?’
Henry shook his head in horror. ‘Really, Thomas. That’s not cricket, old man.’
Verity snapped. ‘Stop putting on an act and trying to prolong it, Father. Just come out with it. It’s ruddy cold, but we’re not moving until we hear what the hell’s going on. All this prevarication is making me jumpy. What about you, girls?’
Sylvia, who had watched all this, realised that living in Howard House was a bit like huddling behind a barricade, with its few key players being brought into safety while outside were the patrols, and a sheepdog running around the grounds as though just exercising. And what about the closed curtains the moment the lights went on in the house? That could be explained by the dimout, but even so, what about the sudden starts at strange noises?
She said slowly to Rogers, who seemed to have set himself up as her guardian while she was here, ‘You can’t always be needing to go into the town for shopping when Joe goes on the bus for school. You know he doesn’t like being babied, but there you are, two of you always sitting at the back so he can have his independence, but like watchdogs, nonetheless. And at home time there’s one of you, or one of the patrol, just happening to get Joe’s bus home.’
Polly looked at her admiringly. ‘Oh, good point, Sylv.’ Sylvia had given up trying to get them to use her full name and, in a way, rather liked the nickname. It reflected the change from her former late-entry difficult trainee to a full member of the pack.
The men exchanged a look, then Henry spoke. ‘A chum of mine in the police – you remember him, Verity, Constable Summerton?’
‘Yes, of course I do. He spanked me in front of all my friends when I scrumped Major Warburton’s apples, and how does one forget that? But do get on.’
‘There’s just been a whisper that that bloody Leon, far from breathing his last, has been sighted in London a couple of times still on the run from the police, only to disappear again. Well, not disappear exactly. Summerton says there’s talk he’s still in London, up to no good but nothing concrete from any of their snouts. Do you remember Norton, who owned that sordid little club near the West End? He was going to give evidence against Leon for his wheeler dealing, and sabotage of the butty, until a bloody bomber dropped a load and caught him in his bungalow, putting an end to the case. Well, the whisper was that Leon might have made a move on that club, because it was a front for a lot of black market and who knows what.’
‘Right up his street,’ Polly sniffed.
The men nodded. Henry continued, ‘The Metropolitan Police sent in a snout a few times but the club’s barely functioning, and Dougie, the doorman, just shrugs, and says it’s ticking over with the staff holding the fort. The police sent in a couple of coppers to have a look around. They found no trace of Leon, but he’s somewhere in London, or so Summerton’s rather large nose tells him.’
‘How does this Summerton know all this, down here, and what does “who knows what” mean?’ Sylvia asked.
‘Ah, good question. His nephew works as a policeman in the Met, and shares things with his uncle,’ Henry told her. They were walking on through the copse, and there was a rustle that turned out to be one of the pigs. ‘This is where I put out the scraps,’ Thomas said. ‘That one’s fattening nicely.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ Verity insisted, as they proceeded past bushes and some holly trees.
‘If I might just interject so we can finally get to the point.’ Rogers wasn’t asking a question. He was leaning with both hands on his walking stick, looking incongruous in his black butler’s suit and mucky green wellington boots. ‘It seems, girls, that Norton, in addition to black market dealings with Leon, had quite an operation around the edges of the West End: protection, prostitutes, violence. So it’s more than a perhaps that this leads to a gang business. The policemen who asked around are a bit “windy” Sommerton’s boy thinks, but he doesn’t actually know if they’s on the take.’
The girls listened as Thomas took up the thread again. ‘So, given the possibility that Leon might have taken Norton’s place, we therefore keep an eye on Joe; not that the lad realises, of course. He just thinks we’re old fussers if he thinks anything about it at all.’
Sylvia nodded. ‘Oh, I see now why you and Mrs B have joined forces, as it were. It’s for protection.’
The answering silence was profound, as Sylvia realised she had spoken her thoughts aloud. Rogers looked at her, his eyebrows raised, saying finally, ‘My dear, protection does not come into it. It is a …’
He petered out, smiling gently, his grey hair lifting in the wind, his faded blue eyes preoccupied with memories. Henry came close, and patted Rogers on the shoulder. ‘These youngsters, eh?’
Sylvia found her voice then. ‘I’m sorry, I was thinking it and then there it was. It was rude, unforgivable and not my business and it must seem I don’t approve, but it’s not that at all. I think love is rather wonderful, but it’s just …’ How could she say that they seemed so old?
She turned to walk on, anywhere. Rogers was quicker than he looked and caught her arm. ‘My dear, what’s to do? Good Lord, Mrs B and I are in a partnership, have been for years, not that young Verity would have noticed, and why should she? Mrs B’s husband returned from the 1914 to 18 war and then took off, we know not where, so a wedding there is none. Does that cross your Ts, and dot your Is?’
Sylvia nodded, saying in a small voice, ‘I didn’t need them crossed, really I didn’t. I just–– Well, love, and families, and people and their lives, are so new to me, and I find it very wonderful that––’
Verity jumped in. ‘It’s so good to have the nitty-gritty. I mean about Joe, of course.’ Rogers smiled slightly, while Thomas and Henry looked at Sylvia as though, Verity thought, they were seeing the girl for the first time. Finally, all three men followed the girls along, Verity with her arm around Sylvia, who muttered, ‘I’m such a fool.’
Verity just said quietly, ‘No, we are because we are all only just realising how it must have been for you, and is for so many others.’ Finally they emerged through the gate and into the side garden.
Henry called, ‘So for now, we would just like you to walk a little closer to the house. Had Dog been with you still, it would have been better. She would have given huge alarm if
she had noticed any intrusion. But things are what they are, so it’s up to you three to be sensible.’
The girls walked in the afternoon, but stayed within easy reach of the house, stopping, listening, and looking. The next morning they took their turn on the bus, carrying the men’s walking sticks and explaining to Joe that they needed them in case they fell or felt odd. They told him that they were going into town to have a look in the shops. ‘We’ll sit at the back of the bus so no one knows you know us,’ Sylvia promised as they waited at the bus stop.
He waved them away. ‘Then do please be standin’ over there, and there be no talkin’ to me. I can get a bus, yer know. I’m good on the roads as well as I be good on t’cut.’
On the bus his friend Martin had kept him a place, and the girls walked firmly to the rear, but the whole way they took turns to glance behind, just to be sure. They were all decanted in Sherborne, and walked yards and yards behind, with the whistles Thomas had provided at the ready. He’d said the girls would be bugger all use in preventing a kidnapping, but they were to whistle as though the hounds of hell were around them, and it would bring the police.
The girls would do this, but they’d also use the walking sticks to whack a few heads, they’d decided as they talked in their beds the previous evening before sleep claimed them, stung by the remark that they’d be bugger all use. ‘Best not burst our stitches, though,’ murmured Sylvia. ‘I’m more frightened of Bet being furious than of Leon, or your dads.’
The other two girls knew that she was lying, because Leon was a brute, and would in all likelihood bring others, after his defeat in the Holmeses’ garden. But a few whacks could gain time and allow the police to get to the scene.
At the end of the eight days, they’d had their stitches removed, and were signed off fit for duty, by Dr Havers. They also knew now that Henry, Thomas and Rogers had everything under control, or everything that could be controlled.
