‘Nice turn-out,’ mentioned Beavan, arranging his great sandwich of a notebook on the table. He waved to his friend Kathy Barratt, the telephone operator. Walter knew much that went on in Binford. ‘Not seen such a crowd in here since the Irish Sweepstake draw last year.’
‘The days of the Irish Sweep are gone,’ said Hob, adding gloomily: ‘Could be for ever.’ He surveyed the room, however, with a grunt of satisfaction. ‘It is a good turn-out, though. Wish they’d all come to the whist drives.’ Doubtfully he regarded Beavan’s notebook. ‘How much of this are you going to be able to put in your paper?’ he queried. ‘We don’t want Jerry to know what we’re planning, do we now? Surely it’ll all have to be hush-hush.’
Beavan regarded him with established dislike. ‘I think I know what’s what,’ he answered. ‘And if I don’t somebody will soon tell me. Hitler reads the New Forest Gazette every week. He has it sent specially.’
Ten minutes before the meeting was due to begin Robert, in his brother’s First World War uniform and wearing an LDV armband, and Elizabeth, with Millie, came into the hall. ‘Make room!’ shouted Hob blatantly. ‘Make room for Mr Lovatt. How’s he going to take the meeting if he can’t get in? And Mrs Lovatt . . . yes, lots of room if you please.’
Elizabeth and Millie said they would stand at the back and, refusing seats offered by Mary Mainprice and her sister Marigold, they took their places among the faces of the cricket team. They noticed Alan Stevens, the schoolteacher, alone, even in that crowded place. Robert strode towards the platform and nodded approvingly at Lennie Dove as he saw that the big radio set had been put in position. He noticed Beavan and grimaced doubtfully. ‘Would you rather I put the notebook away?’ suggested Beavan seeing the expression. ‘I could just sit here as an individual Englishman if you like.’
Robert nodded his large head. ‘I think that would be best, Walter,’ he decided. ‘We don’t want any of this falling into enemy hands.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Beavan coolly. He closed the notebook. He was a lazy man and glad of the excuse. ‘I don’t mind. As long as you explain to the editor.’
Robert said he would. Two other parish councillors, John Oakes and Rob Noyes, came in to take their chairs on either side of him. In the hall there was always an agreeable smell of dust. It was as if villagers from far back had left some particle as a memory. He acknowledged John Lampard and his wife as they entered. Mrs Lampard had cried when they returned from Dunkirk and, sobbing, made her husband promise that he would never do such a thing again. And to take the boy Willy, as well, was madness. Now she treated Robert to a scowl.
The vicar, the Reverend Clifford Pemberton, entered worriedly. He examined the room, surprised at the crowd, and then made his way to the platform, shaking hands with Robert, with John Oakes and Rob Noyes, who was an insurance man. Between him and the vicar it had often been a matter of professional pride and rivalry as to who arrived first at a dead man’s house.
‘My goodness,’ the vicar whispered as he sat down, ‘what a good turn-out. Perhaps we ought to take a collection.’
The hall was full now, although late-comers were still trying to get in at the back. Someone opened the windows along each side so that people could stand outside, peer in and listen. The desultory sounds of a rural evening drifted in. Rooks calling softly, noisy cows, a dog barking far off.
Robert pedantically rechecked his watch and then stood, at once provoking silence. Everyone knew he had been to Dunkirk with the Dove brothers, the coastguard and Mr Lampard. Elizabeth, standing among the cooling cricketers, saw Millie puff out her cheeks. The air was close and the cricketers were still sweating. ‘I think we had better make a start,’ announced Robert. ‘Is everybody here who should be here?’
A woman’s thin hand hovered at the front. ‘My Frank can’t come,’ squawked the owner. ‘’Ee’s on guard.’
‘Which pub, missus?’ asked a man’s voice from the back. Laughter filled the room.
‘Now, now,’ admonished Robert mildly. ‘We’re not here for an entertainment. This is a matter of national importance.’ He nodded towards the woman who had remained with her skinny fingers suspended. ‘Yes, Mrs Root, I know all about Frank. He’s guarding down at The Haven.’
‘I wasn’t goin’ to say where, Mr Lovatt,’ she told him, lowering the arm at last. She turned fiercely towards the rear of the room. ‘I’m not like some, opening their big mouths all the time!’
‘Splendid,’ sighed Robert. ‘Then let’s begin . . .’
A commotion at the entrance caused him again to pause impatiently. The people at the door were being forced aside and, as they parted, the elderly Mrs Spofforth, accompanied by Bess Spofforth and a dusty stranger wearing a bereft expression and black suit, came into the room. There were murmurs of protest by those being pressed closer together or pushed sideways out of the door but the old lady was too notorious for anyone to offer real resistance.
‘Hurry along, now,’ said Robert but also with due caution. He was aware that the vicar, alongside him, was covering his face with his hands as if hiding behind a barricade. ‘Oh God,’ he heard him whisper like a prayer. ‘That woman.’
‘Hurry along?’ exclaimed the old lady. Bess gave her a warning tug but she irritably pulled herself away. She advanced a few paces until the density of the watchers prevented even her further progress. ‘Who is telling me to hurry along?’ Her face went to the platform. ‘Robert Lovatt, I’ll tell you right now, and for nothing, that I’ve brought along someone you ought to listen to at this meeting.’ Fiercely she jabbed her finger into the sad man in the shabby suit. ‘Him!’ she bellowed. The man’s black-ringed eyes blinked unhappily. ‘Him,’ she reiterated. ‘He knows all about Hitler.’
Robert drew a large breath. He was not going to let her take over. He remembered how, in this hall, she had wrecked the 1939 pantomime because she said the piano was out of tune. ‘And who, Mrs Spofforth, is this gentleman?’ he inquired gently. All around the hall people were straining to get a view of the newcomer.
‘Our refugee – that’s who!’ exclaimed Mrs Spofforth proudly. She raised the man’s arm like a prize fighter. The tight black sleeve clung to his elbow. He looked about him, clay-faced. ‘Mr Van Lorn from Holland,’ continued Mrs Spofforth. ‘He knows what buggers the Germans are!’
Robert could see the meeting slipping out of his hands. ‘Yes, yes, madam,’ he said still mildly. ‘We will be most interested to hear what he has to say. Any . . . tips he can give us. But first I think we must proceed with the primary purpose of the meeting. Thank you.’
Mrs Spofforth conceded, but with both hesitation and truculence, determined to have the final word of the preliminaries. ‘He hasn’t got any clothes,’ she announced blatantly, again jabbing towards the Dutchman who moved away from her finger. ‘Arrived without a rag to his back.’ Her voice rose in drama: ‘In the middle of the night he came and . . .’ Bess’s iron grip and the Dutchman’s protests, backed by Robert’s exhortations, stemmed her eventually and she noisily sat on a chair swiftly evacuated by a timid woman. ‘He’ll tell ’em. He’ll tell ’em . . .’ she muttered.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ announced Robert desperately. ‘The Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire has requested, no, ordered this meeting as a matter of great urgency. Similar meetings are being held in communities throughout the entire country. It is simply to tell you what our present dangers are, what dangers may be upon us quite shortly, to decide what we should do as a village and – just as important – what we should not do. Also to put together a list of our resources – vehicles, animals, foodstuffs, weapons, all manner of items that might be useful in an emergency. Anything we can think up. All these will be entered in a book – to be called the Binford War Book – and their whereabouts noted, so that we can call on them as the need may be.’
A deeply interested excitement came over the villagers. There were some whispers but quickly silenced. Robert saw a group of forest gypsies, Liberty Cooper at their centre, standi
ng outside the window. At the back somebody dropped a tin hat on the floor and was roundly shushed. It rocked noisily before the owner picked it up. The pale Dutchman kept looking round at the people as if they were acting out some remote play.
‘First of all,’ continued Robert in his solicitor’s manner, ‘what to do if we are invaded. It is very obvious that any landing would put us here immediately in the front line. Binford, have no doubt, would be a scene of heavy fighting within days, perhaps hours.’ Slowly hands went to the chins and mouths of people in the front. Their faces became reflective. He picked up a piece of paper from the table. ‘Make sure that you give the Germans nothing. Don’t even talk to them or tell them anything. Hide your bicycles and any food you may have, and especially petrol. If you have a car or a motor cycle it must be rendered useless.’ Bess Spofforth sniffed.
A full, shocked silence filled the room. There was only a furtive fidgeting of feet and the small scrape of a chair; but outside cows still called from dusk fields and rooks from their branches.
Robert could see his wife’s set face intent on him as were the others. His daughter-in-law was biting her lip. Beside him on the platform the vicar had his hands clasped together as if prepared for diving. One of the other parish councillors, John Oakes, an unruffled farmer, was puffing copious clouds from his pipe. The other, Rob Noyes, tight-faced and pale, was leaning on one thin elbow, eyes shut, wondering perhaps about insurance claims that might follow heavy fighting.
‘It may occur,’ continued Robert, ‘that at some time you will receive orders to block the roads into the village to impede the advance of the enemy. This can be done by felling trees and wiring them together, using wheels to get them across the roads, by building barricades with farm vehicles and cars. But only under orders – we must not block the wrong roads.’
An elderly woman, one of the Purkiss family, stood up dramatically. Robert regarded her sternly, but she said: ‘Sorry, lord, my old leg goes to sleep, see.’ Tom Purkiss, who had lost his fingers in Norway, regarded her helplessly.
Robert began reading from a printed pamphlet which had reached him in that afternoon’s post. ‘If you hear that the enemy have landed,’ he continued after waiting for the old lady to smile her thanks and reseat herself, ‘every one of you,’ he gazed around the pavilion, ‘each person must act like a soldier. Stay put and do not panic. You must trust our front-line chaps to deal with the Germans.’
Suddenly he felt hollow, helpless. Even he knew there would be no hope. What could these people do? Summoning his brisk legal voice, he went on: ‘Keep your heads, that’s all I can say.’ He hesitated: ‘If you have any doubts as to whether an officer is British or not . . . ask the advice of a policeman or an ARP warden . . .’ His voice trailed away. He squinted hard at the pamphlet. The only words left were ‘Printed in England’ which he felt he would have realized, and ‘Donated by the Brewers Society’ which he would not.
The vicar was regarding him glassy-eyed. ‘Ask a policeman?’ whispered the clergyman. ‘Ask an ARP warden? Jesus.’
Robert muttered: ‘That’s what it says here.’ He tapped the pamphlet. From the back of the hall Elizabeth saw Alan Stevens shake his head in disbelief. Then Mrs Spofforth bawled: ‘Rubbish! You don’t know a thing about it! Let’s hear the Dutchman!’ She flung her arms extravagantly: ‘Here he is!’ The forlorn refugee in the coat composed an expression that may have been half smile, half sob, and mutely nodded.
‘In one moment, Mrs Spofforth,’ Robert bellowed back from the platform. ‘Everything in good time. The Prime Minister is about to broadcast to the nation. We must listen to that first.’ He rolled his eyes at the wireless set.
‘It’s a couple of minutes yet, sir,’ said Peter Dove from the lower edge of the platform.
‘Get it going,’ said Robert tersely. He had a horror that the meeting might get out of hand. ‘Fiddle around with it, man.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ agreed Peter. Clambering on to the stage he began to check the various leads from the batteries to the huge set. To fill in the vacuum, to keep their attention, Robert announced: ‘We must begin our war book. All our resources, everything from cars to tea kettles.’ He was pleased with the phrase. It might have almost been Churchillian. ‘Most gun owners have made themselves available to the Local Defence Volunteers,’ he went on.
‘Aye,’ came a grating voice from the middle. ‘And they’re using them for target practice on my birds.’ Gates, the gamekeeper, rose as if he had been under cover. ‘If they shoots the Germans like they shoots my pheasants then we got nothing to worry about.’
The laughter that rose was severed almost before it had begun by the crackling of the wireless set. Peter was turning the waveband knob. Then chill, loud, knife-like, the voice came over the air. ‘Germany calling, Germany calling. What are you trying to achieve, England? Why don’t you take the friendly olive branch that Germany is offering? You are beaten. The Dutch, the Belgians and the French hate you. This war is only going on because of the money that the Jews are putting into their pockets. Are you prepared to die for the Jews?’
‘Off!’ hooted Robert. ‘Off! Put that balderdash off! I’ve never –’
‘Sorry, Mr Lovatt,’ answered Peter Dove. He grinned. ‘I thought somehow that didn’t sound like old Churchill.’
The audience was again consumed with laughter. For them Lord Haw-Haw, the English traitor William Joyce, was a comedian only to be compared with Funf, the German spy in ITMA, the favourite Tommy Handley wireless programme.
John Oakes blew a great thoughtful cumulus from the bowl of his pipe towards the dusty ceiling. ‘I’d like to tie that man to my bull,’ he said without emphasis.
‘Got it all right now, Mr Lovatt,’ reported Peter, hovering beside the wireless set. ‘Near damn missed it, though.’
‘Mr Churchill,’ announced Robert to the audience as though he expected the Prime Minister to trot from the wings. ‘Quiet everybody, please.’
A stillness fell at once across the hall. Not a face moved. A fly buzzing near the door could be clearly heard at the front. Annoyed, Robert looked towards it. Surprisingly it was the Dutchman, moving with some agility, who caught it in mid-flight and squashed it in his hand. He opened his palm and regarded it with the quaint satisfaction of a victim who has just claimed a victim of his own. The faces at the windows were like a gallery of framed medieval paintings, dark skins, the round, coarse, rural expressions, puzzled, simple, trusting. Mrs Spofforth leaned to one side and brushed some dust from the shoulder of her refugee’s coat.
Through the rustic room the deep, throaty, theatrical voice of Winston Churchill sounded. Never had anyone produced such bravado with a lisp. ‘We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be,’ the words rolled out. ‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.’ Stony nods of agreement started to move about the room. Robert, still on his feet, drew himself quietly to attention. His own gaze found that of his wife and she smiled encouragement. Churchill said: ‘We shall never surrender.’
When the speech was finished there was a silence that lingered through the room. There was nothing more to be said. Peter Dove glanced at Robert and turned the wireless set off. A shuffling and coughing filtered from the back. No one seemed to know what to do. Robert leaned towards the vicar. ‘How about “Land of Hope and Glory”?’ he suggested.
‘How about “There’ll Be Blue Birds Over the White Cliffs of Dover”?’ suggested the vicar.
‘For God’s sake, vicar . . .’
The Reverend Clifford Pemberton said: ‘Indeed, for God’s sake . . . I don’t think we ought to sing anything now, Robert. I think everybody ought to just go home.’
‘Can we go ’ome now, sir?’ suggested a man in the front, having overheard. ‘They Jerries might be coming tonight. ’Sides which ’tis near closing time.’ The man continued: ‘I got to get my booby traps set.’ He had no teeth
and he grinned horribly at his neighbours. His wife, a red coat tied around her like a bag of blood, nodded: ‘Snare wire and gunpowder, my George ’as got,’ she announced loudly.
‘Wait! Wait!’ It was Mrs Spofforth from the rear of the room. Urgently she towed the Dutchman towards the front so that he seemed like some captive bird, shabby and black. ‘You’ve got to give an ear to Mr Van Lorn!’ Mrs Spofforth demanded. ‘He’s seen it all in Holland! He’s suffered!’
Robert and the others on the platform knew there was no escaping this. They shuffled to make room and the spare stranger, his expression tight and white, was thrust on to the stage by the agile grandmother. He shuffled a few unhappy paces into the space left for him. Mrs Spofforth began to applaud and call: ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ and the Binford people sportingly joined in. While they clapped, the old lady, leaning at a sharp angle, confided to the vicar: ‘He’s a better class of refugee, of course.’
Eventually the acclaim stuttered and stopped. The people now waited for the Dutchman’s words with almost as much anticipation as they had awaited Churchill’s.
The refugee stood with a dignified uncertainty. He ignored the insistence of Mrs Spofforth who urged: ‘Speak up, man. Come on . . . tell them.’
He regarded the faces from the English fields ranged before him with a kind of compassion. He turned to look at those on the platform, Robert in a stance like a statue, the vicar staring into a cloud of pipe smoke gathered like a halo above the head of Mr Oakes, Rob Noyes examining his hands as if wondering how long he could expect them to last, and the reporter Wally Beavan now licking his pencil and with his notebook expectantly open.
The Dearest and the Best Page 25
