The next thing I knew I was being marched into this room and there was this captain with a bald head, sitting behind a desk, looking up at me, and asking me all sorts of questions, like what my name was, what I was doing there, and where did I live. So I told him and he shook his head and said didn’t I know I could have got myself killed? I said no. Then he got angry at me, banged the table, and told me I was never, never to go through the wire again, and did I understand? I said I did, but I just wanted to find Tips. And he said who was Tips and I said she was my cat. Then he said, “Jesus Christ Almighty,” which he shouldn’t have said, because you’re not supposed to say things like that, unless you’re praying, that is. Then he bawled out a command of some kind and in came another soldier and saluted. It was Adie. Was I glad to see him! “They say you know this kid, soldier. That right?” the captain asked.
“Yessir,” said Adie, standing very stiffly beside me and not looking at all pleased to see me. “She was just playing around, Captain, like kids do. She didn’t mean no harm by it.” Adie was told to take me home, to tell my mother and make sure it didn’t happen again. “Yessir, Captain,” said Adie, and saluted again.
I smiled up at Adie as he took me out, to thank him for coming to my rescue. He didn’t smile back at all. He walked me silently to the jeep and drove me all the way back home without a word. He turned off the engine by the farm gate, out of sight of the house. “You’re some crazy girl, you know that?” he said. He lit up a cigarette, and his face glowed in the dark and I could see now that he was really angry with me. “Here’s what I’m gonna do, Lily,” he said. “I’m not gonna tell your mama about what you done, if you promise me you won’t do this no more. But you gotta promise like you mean it.”
“I promise,” I told him, but I didn’t mean it.
“Now you listen to me real good. I been looking, Harry’s been looking. We’re gonna find that cat for you. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say? But if you go snooping about, I’m telling you, either you gonna get yourself blowed to bits, or they’re gonna catch you again. I’m serious here. We got patrols in there all day, every day. They’ll catch you, Lily. Ain’t no way they won’t. Ain’t no way I can save your hide next time.” He told me I could go, so I got out of the jeep. He looked at me for a moment as I stood there, and shook his head. “Just like my little sisters you is. Trouble. Nothin’ but trouble. And stubborn as a mule. I knowed you were trouble the moment I first saw you. You do what Adie says now. You be good, y’hear.” Then he drove off and left me there.
I think Adie knows I’m not going to be good. He knows I’m going back in to look for Tips. And I am too, because now I know for sure what’s been stopping Tips from coming out of hiding and eating my food. That American guard dog, that Alsatian. I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to wake up early; I’ll wait till Mum goes off to do the milking. No one will see me, will they? It’ll still be dark in the early morning, so I should be safe enough if I don’t take too long. And Tips always likes going out hunting when it’s dark. She’s probably hiding up somewhere by day, scared stiff of that guard dog. Don’t blame her. That’s probably why I haven’t been able to find her all this time. But I’ll find her now. She’ll come out in the dark, I know she will. I’ll find you, Tips, I promise — I will.
I so want to tell someone everything that happened to me today. I think Barry’s the only person I could tell. No one else would believe me. Maybe I’ll tell him tomorrow.
I don’t need to tell Barry. He already knows.
I got up early this morning, while it was still dark, just as I’d planned. There was no one about. I heard the cows mooing in the barn as I ran across the farmyard, and I could hear Mum singing to them. She likes to sing to them when she’s milking. She thinks it makes them happy, and she likes them happy because they give more milk. I scrambled through the wire in my usual place, out of sight of the farmhouse, and ran across the fields. After a while I stopped to catch my breath and to call out for Tips, and to listen. That was when I heard the sound of panting coming from behind me. I thought it was that guard dog again, coming at me out of the darkness, coming fast, and I went numb all over with fear. But it wasn’t the dog that came out of the darkness. It was Barry and he was angry at me, angry like I’d never seen him. He got hold of me and was shaking me. He said he knew I’d been up to something. He’d got up to go milking with Mum and he’d seen me running off. He was shrieking at me. “What do you think you’re doing, Lily? It’s dangerous. You shouldn’t be here. It’s going to be a battlefield. Live ammunition, Lily — shells, bombs, bullets. There’s signs up everywhere. DANGER — LIVE FIRING. Can’t you read? You’re not allowed!” Then he stopped his shouting and suddenly let me go. “You’ve been in here before! You’ve been through the wire lots of times, haven’t you?” he said. “You’re looking for Tips, aren’t you?”
When I began to cry he sat me down under the hedge. I told him everything then, all about Adie and Harry, all about yesterday, and how I’d looked and looked and couldn’t find Tips anywhere, how I was sure she was still alive. Barry didn’t say anything for a while, just picked at the snow. “You won’t tell, will you?” I said.
“Course not,” he replied. “What do you think I am? But we’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
“Just one more look,” I said. “Please, Barry. She could be waiting for us right now. Please.” I knew he’d let me and he did.
As we walked across the fields together, the moon seemed to be floating on the sea. There were lots of ships in the bay, more than usual. In spite of the moonlight, the sky was darker out there over the sea than over the hills beyond the farm. Dawn was breaking there. No sun yet, only the gray beginning of a new day. All was quiet. We climbed the gate and stood there, just listening. We began to call for her, softly at first, then a little louder, then as loud as we dared. There was no answering call, only an empty, eerie silence. But it was strange, because I felt the silence seemed to be waiting for something to happen, so when it did I wasn’t nearly as surprised as I should have been.
Suddenly the sky was filled with bright orange and yellow flashes all along the horizon and then there came a great roaring followed by huge explosions, one after the other: down on the beach, below in the village, explosions that were coming closer and closer to us all the time. I could feel the ground shaking under my feet. Barry took my hand and we ran, ran for our lives. But however hard we ran, the explosions seemed to be catching up with us. I was screaming and screaming. I tripped and rolled over and over, and Barry fell half on top of me. Then the shelling stopped and we dared to stand up and look. In the thin light I could see there were landing craft coming through the smoke toward the beach, two or three at first, then dozens of them, the soldiers leaping out of the water and charging up the beach, firing as they came.
Barry pulled me to my feet and we ran. It seemed like miles that we ran, but we didn’t stop till we reached the wire. I was in such a hurry, I snagged my coat as I wriggled through and Barry had to stop and unhook me. As we walked home together, I was shaking and speechless and breathless. At the back door, before we went in, Barry made me promise never again to go through the wire. I promised, and this time I meant it. I really meant it. I was frightened out of my skin. I’m not going back in there, not anymore, not for Tips, not for all the tea in China.
All day at school Barry and I kept looking at each other. Everyone was talking about the fireworks out at sea that morning. Everyone had heard it, or heard about it, but we’d been there. Mrs. Blumfeld said she thought it was likely to happen again and again. “They have to practice,” she told us. “It’s like anything, children. If you want to do something well, you have to practice. And if we want them to win the war, if we do want Europe to be free again, then we want them to practice all they want, don’t we?”
Uncle George’s cat is back on our bed. He thinks he’s taking Tips’s place. Maybe he is, but only on my bed, never in my heart.
Mrs. Blumfeld was r
ight. The Yanks are practicing almost every day now. Most days now you can hear the whoosh and thump and crump of the bombs in the distance. I was coming up the lane with Barry after school today when we heard it again. It wasn’t close enough to make the earth shake, not like before. But we were close enough to hear the cracking and spitting of rifle fire, and Barry said it sounded more like they were machine guns because they were firing so fast. It sounded to me like a whole orchestra of war. It was far away but it was still frightening, and the strange thing was the birds were joining in too. It doesn’t seem to frighten them at all.
It’s like a miracle. We were just sitting in the kitchen having our tea when we heard a car outside. Uncle George’s dog was going mad. Mum said to see who it was. By the time we went out Uncle George’s dog was attacking the tires, biting and snapping at them. It was a jeep. Adie was in it and Harry too. It was the first time I’d ever seen them without their helmets on. They looked even younger somehow, not men at all like the other soldiers. More like boys. “Got something for you, Lily,” said Adie, and his smile seemed like a laugh waiting to happen. “Something that’s gonna make you real happy.”
I thought it would be some chocolate or something. But it wasn’t. Harry reached into the back of the jeep and lifted out a cardboard box — a cardboard box that was mewing! “You said black and white, right?” Harry said, giving it to me. “We found this one hiding away in that old hotel down on the beach. She’s blacker’n me and whiter’n you. Scratches some too.”
Adie took her and held her out to me. “This the one you been looking for?” I knew her at once, from her battered ear, from her markings, her white paw, and from the deep roaring purr inside her as I took her into my arms and hugged her to my cheek.
I’m not sure how it all happened after that. I know I was crying a lot, then hugging Adie and Harry. I know they were about to get back in the jeep when Mum came out, and minutes later we were all sitting around the kitchen table, Adie, Harry, Grandfather, Uncle George, Mum, Barry, and me with Tips sharpening her claws on my lap, and we were all having the best and happiest teatime of our lives. Mum got out the scones and clotted cream she had been saving for Sunday. Adie and Harry had never had scones before. Barry got some cream on his nose and tried to lick it off with his tongue and he couldn’t, so he used the back of his hand and licked it and everyone laughed. And no one talked about the war, not even Uncle George. They stayed until it was dark.
I walked with Adie out to the jeep, Tips riding on my shoulder and clinging to me as if she would never let go. “Lily,” he said quietly, “I gotta tell you there was other cats, young ones, a whole family of them down in that old hotel place. From the looks of her and the looks of them, I reckon they was her family, maybe too old to need mothering, but you’d better keep a good eye on her, else she could go right back to them, y’understand me?” He stopped by the jeep and stroked Tips on the head. “She’s home now. You keep her here.” He looked up at the farmhouse and put on his helmet. “I had the best time, Lily, the best time since I left home,” he said.
Then I asked him, “When you go out in those boats and do those landings, is it dangerous?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “They fire real live stuff over our heads, so I guess it is. But they do it so we can get used to it. They know what they’re doing, I reckon. It’ll be a whole lot hotter when we do it for real over in France, that’s for sure.”
“When will you go?” I asked him.
“Sooner the better,” Adie said. “It’s what we came over here for, Lily, so I just want to get on with it, get it done, and get back home.” Then he and Harry were gone. I realized too late that I never even said thank you.
Grandfather was sitting with his feet in the oven this evening when he turned to me and said, “Lily, I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but those gum-chewing Yanks are all right. They’re all right.”
Uncle George’s cat hasn’t been seen since Tips arrived. Tips is queen here now. She’s taken over the whole house — and my bed. She’s lying spread out on my feet right now, flexing her claws and looking at me as I’m writing. She never takes her eyes off me. And Adie was right, she has had more kittens. It was some time ago but I can still tell. I just hope her kittens are old enough to do without her. I can’t let her go back to them, I just can’t. It’s so good to have her back. I feel like I’m purring inside, purring with happiness.
I’ve been thinking. Next time I see Adie I’m going to ask him to bring her kittens home as well, then Tips will be really happy like me. And she won’t ever want to go running off to find them.
Tips has gone off again. It was Barry’s fault. He left the back door ajar when he went to fetch the logs. I told him. I told everyone she might make a run for it, that we had to be sure to keep her in. Tips must have slipped out behind his back because we haven’t been able to find her since. Barry says he was only gone for a few moments. I try not to blame him, but in my heart I do. He should have been more careful.
I’m more cross than upset. At least I know where she must have gone: back to her kittens, back to the hotel. At least I know she’s alive. As soon as I can I’ll tell Adie, and he can go and fetch her back again, and the kittens too this time. He’ll do it for me, I know he will.
Today was such a beautiful day too, clear skies and a blue, blue sea. There are primroses all under the hedges and celandine too. Why do sad things have to happen on beautiful days? And Barry’s miserable too because he thinks I’m angry with him. I’m not really, not much anyway. I’ll make it up to him tomorrow. We heard lots more big explosions today — one huge one that shook the whole house. I hope Adie and Harry are all right.
Someone said it first on the school bus this morning. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it, but Mrs. Blumfeld told us it was true. The Slapton Beach Hotel was blown up yesterday, blown to pieces during a landing exercise. She says there’s nothing left but rubble. Barry picked some primroses for me on the way home this afternoon because he thought they’d make me feel better, I suppose, but they don’t. This time I know I won’t see Tips again. There’s no point in even hoping, not anymore. She had her nine lives, I suppose, but her kittens didn’t, did they? I can’t even cry. I’m too sad. Uncle George’s cat came in a few minutes ago. Maybe he knows what’s happened, and he’s trying to be kind. I’ve put him out now. I don’t want any other cat, not ever.
Mum said this morning that she had a big surprise for me. I thought she was just trying to cheer me up. First she said Barry and I could stay away from school today, so we knew something was up. Then she cooked a special Sunday lunch, even though it wasn’t Sunday, with roast chicken and apple crumble. The table was laid with all the best china and her best tablecloth, and she’d done her hair and put on powder and lipstick. Even Uncle George looked less like an old scarecrow than usual. He’d slicked down his hair and put a tie on. Grandfather wasn’t there and no one would tell me where he was. Mum just tapped her nose at me and smiled mysteriously. Barry said he knew what it was all about but he wasn’t going to tell me. So I pretended I didn’t care anyway, which upset him a bit, which I shouldn’t have. He was only trying to keep the surprise. And when the surprise came it was supreme, just supreme.
When we heard the dogs barking outside, I knew then it would be Adie. I was sure of it. I ran outside, but it wasn’t an American jeep; it was a car, Grandfather’s old Ford, still dusty from being kept in the barn. Someone was waving at me but I couldn’t see who it was, not at first. Then he opened the door and got out. But he wasn’t wearing an American uniform. It was a British uniform, with stripes the right way up. Dad! Dad in his beret! Dad was home! “Hello, Lil,” he said. “Remember me?” I ran to him and we hugged there in the farmyard with Uncle George’s dog chewing at the tires of Grandfather’s car. Then Mum did her hugging and cried a lot, and even Uncle George looked as if he was crying too as he shook Dad’s hand. When I looked around a few minutes later to introduce Barry, he’d gone.
He was there sitting beside me at lunch but he wasn’t his usual chatty self, and he didn’t eat much either, which wasn’t at all like him. It was the best lunch. Dad ate as if he hadn’t eaten at all in the two years he’d been gone.
He said right at the start he wasn’t going to say a word about Africa and Italy and the army. He only wanted to know about home, about the farm and the evacuation, and how we’d all managed. We told him everything about the move, about Adie and Harry and about the Slapton Sands Hotel and Tips. He said how sorry he was and kissed me, which was nice because I knew he’d never really liked Tips all that much. He did try to talk to Barry, but Barry had gone all shy and quiet and wouldn’t say a word. After a while he asked to be excused and went out. I couldn’t understand why he was behaving like he was until Mum said it. “He lost his father,” she told Dad quietly. “In the RAF, over Dunkirk, wasn’t it, Lil?” I felt so bad, so stupid not to have realized. I had my father back, but Barry could never have his back. I went out and found him sitting, looking at the sea. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to look at me, even. He did want me to stay though, I could tell. I sat down beside him, and we said nothing to each other for a long time, which is what only true friends can do.
Barry cheered up that evening, but I wasn’t that happy because Mum told me I had to move out of our room so Dad could sleep there. I’m sleeping on the sofa in the sitting room until Dad goes. He says he’s got five days’ leave. It’s not so bad though, because with any luck I’ll get to stay up late every night. They can’t exactly make me go to bed, can they, if I’m down here? And anyway, it’s not so bad, I’ve got the fire to look at and keep me warm.
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips Page 6
