Dew on the grass of the cricket field blinked with sunlight. A clutch of small boys pulled the iron roller towards the clipped grass oblong at the centre, for that afternoon there was to be the match against Radfield Compton, the annual meeting, culminating in a jovial evening, the downing of beer, and the rural romance of the annual dance. The young lads were all in uniform, boy scouts, two naval cadets and one green wolf-cub, Tommy Oakes. They were pretending the roller was a field gun. Tommy shouted: ‘Forward men! They’ve landed! They’ve landed!’
The door of the pavilion was open. Inside, in the warm dust and dimness, the windows dull as squares of paper, an eager group was sorting through some khaki uniforms piled haphazardly on a trestle table. ‘Ha, Mrs Lovatt,’ exclaimed Tom Purkiss. ‘The CO is coming right down – Major Lovatt.’ He said it as if she might be in doubt whom he meant. ‘We got some outfits at last.’
‘Least we’ll look like soldiers,’ added Sid Turner, ‘though they look like they’re a bit old.’ He held up a tunic, some brass fittings still hanging to its faded fabric. Elizabeth could smell the mustiness of the consignment which had spilled out of the tin trunk. The basset sniffed at them and attempted to lift his leg. Sid moved him gently with his foot.
‘First come, first served, it ought to be,’ said Harold Clark. He looked hopefully at Elizabeth. ‘Don’t you reckon so, Mrs Lovatt? We got ’ere first.’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ answered Elizabeth tactfully. She half lifted the open lid of the trunk. ‘You’ll have to ask my husband. He’s in charge, not me. I’ve just come to see about the arrangements for the dance.’
‘That’s what we came for, ma’am,’ said Purkiss. ‘To help out. And this lot was on the doorstep. Fancy leaving them outside. Could have been stole.’
Elizabeth did not think so. She examined the damp, mouldering fabric between her fingers and then lifted the lid a fraction. The other side bore a rough painting of a military badge and the words ‘Regimental Museum’. A ghostly staleness rose from the pile. She lifted a sagging khaki arm as one might lift that of a dead man. The men watched her like children, hoping not to be disappointed. ‘What you think then, Mrs Lovatt?’ asked Harold. ‘D’you reckon they’ll do us?’
Elizabeth continued sorting the tunics.
‘They Germans will know we’re not just beginners if we got uniforms,’ Harold added after a thought. ‘I reckon we ought to make the best of them. They don’t look like they been unpacked for years and years.’
Dubiously Elizabeth picked up the tunic of which she had raised the arm. ‘They’ll need some attention,’ she said.
‘Airing,’ suggested Purkiss, sniffing at the pile. Wadsworth sniffed also.
‘Cleaning,’ said Elizabeth. She suddenly, and with a dropping heart, saw that the breast of the uniform tunic she was holding was torn and burned into round holes. There was a dark, old stain, running from there to the bottom of the jacket.
‘And repairing,’ she added quietly.
Ben Bennett and his New Forest Arcadians had arrived in Binford for the dance with the syncopated Ben suddenly replaced by his wife.
A surprise call to war service was the official explanation of Mr Bennett’s absence, although a growing number of people believed the rumour circulated by Ma Fox that he had been taken away by the police after complaints from an insurance company. His wife, Marge, wearing Ben’s own sparkling jacket, carried on in his absence but her conducting was little more than a random waving of the baton. Her face was set, even hostile, compared with Ben’s beaming features, she smiled only with her false teeth.
Marge also insisted on the band’s punctuality (on more than one previous occasion the musicians and Ben had needed to be rooted out of some forest public house before the dancing could commence) and in the long sunshine of the evening, at seven o’clock, the musicians, carrying their instruments, trooped heavily across the cricket field. The drummer pensively bowled his drum like a hoop over the grass.
There were still people sitting on the field, at the verge, for the cricket match, which had given Binford a narrow and enthralling victory, had only finished half an hour previously. The players, still in their stained and threadbare whites, were now in the bar of the Old Crown, faces glowing, voices loud, discussing the aspects of the game and the sharp moment when victory had finally been achieved. Radfield Compton had batted first and had scored one hundred and seventeen before tea; Binford had made victory with Charlie Fox, the landlord of the pub, last man in and no cricketer, scooping the ball with the toe of his bat high over the heads of the near fielders and excitedly lumbering down the wicket for the winning run. It had been a good day.
At that time of the evening also, at the distant end of Binford, Bess Spofforth was coaxing her horse, Merlin, from the gate of her grandmother’s house, turning a few yards along the road and then into the deep trees of the forest. It was her evening patrol and she had left her grandmother in outrage, for the girl had gone without doing her normal chore of pulling the old lady from her bath. Mrs Spofforth could not climb the steep sides of the old tub and it was Bess’s understood duty to help her upright and steady her first frail leg over the deep side. Mrs Spofforth, in consternation, heard her granddaughter cajoling the horse through the gate and then its clip-clop on the road. She began to howl, hoping that her cries would fly through the fanlight open at the top of the window, but the hoofsounds moved away and vanished. Mrs Spofforth was left in a patriotic five inches of water (the same, so the wireless announcer had said, as that used by the King himself). She banged and bawled but to no avail. Bess had gone on patrol and would not be back for two hours.
‘’S all right you sayin’ that Churchill is our leader,’ asserted one of the Radfield Compton men, Henry Hadfield, who had worked on Southampton Docks. ‘But ’ee’s one of the bosses and once a boss always a boss, I say. Look at ’is bloody cigar, I say. You only have to look at that to know.’
Charlie Fox, still flushed with the triumph of his single victorious run, leaned across the bar. ‘What d’you want then, a bloke who smokes Woodbines? Who’d follow ’im, I ask you?’ He raised his fingers in the Churchillian two-digit salute. ‘V-for-victory. None of your trade unionists couldn’t have thought that up. It takes a big brain to think up something like that.’ He leaned over darkly. ‘And watch your language in this pub, Henry Hadfield. We got a swear box here, you know.’
Charlie’s mother leaned gladly across to the discomfited Henry. ‘They say the Germans are tunnelling under the Channel,’ she announced confidently. ‘They’ve heard banging and ’ammering from the seabed, right off Dover.’
That day a new government emergency measure had been promulgated, ordering that no one but a ‘servant of His Majesty’s Government might be in possession of balloons or fireworks’. It was a restriction regarded with dismay in Binford. ‘What about the balloons at the dance?’ asked Charlie’s mother. ‘I like it when all the balloons are let loose.’
‘How about our Molotov cocktails?’ asked Peter Dove. ‘Don’t say they’re going to stop us making them. We’ve got the fireworks.’
Ron Beyton, another Radfield Compton man, leaned towards Peter. ‘You got Molotov cocktails?’ he inquired cagily.
Peter moved away, regarding him suspiciously from a safe distance. ‘We can’t talk about them, you know that, Ron Beyton,’ he said.
Ron retaliated. His voice rose to take in the surrounding cricketers. ‘I hear tell that Binford LDV are going to have their telephone cut off. Not paying the bill.’
A silence dropped on the local men, beer mugs were set down, eyes widened. ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Lennie Dove, who had struck three sixes out of the ground that afternoon. ‘’Ow could that be? They can’t cut off the LDV phone. What if the invasion starts? Who’s going to tell us? Never heard such a load of cobblers as that, Ron Beyton.’
Beyton drank slowly from his tankard. ‘All right. Just see. My brother is in the post office at Lyndhurst, and he ought to know. They
’re going to cut you off unless you pay up.’ He smirked. ‘If the Jerries invade you’d better get somebody to light a signal fire.’
Bess rode easily across the darkening moorland. The forest was wide open for miles in places, with enclaves and enclosures of woods, cosseted in vales and in remote bends in the landscape. It was a secretive place that sometimes became threatening as night came on. A single bird, lost in the dusk, piped its note.
She had ridden these paths since childhood, although even she did not know all the forest ways. The mystery, freedom and solitude of the place caught her. That night she had promised to be at the Binford Annual Dance; Harry had said that he would try to get away from Portsmouth for the evening. She scarcely cared whether he did or did not.
The sun went at ten, casting a mauve light over the gorse and making the hills black and muscular. Merlin was anxious to go home. He was frightened by a suddenly rising sparrow hawk that whirred away into the dusk. Bess caught her breath and controlled the horse. She had just decided to turn around and go back towards the main road which would take her to Binford, now three or four miles away, when she saw an aeroplane coming towards her, flying low through the gloom. It was like a spectral bat. It made no sound, but glided from the last of the daylight, its wings dipping uncertainly. It passed above her with a gush of wind, dropping lower and disappearing over the black hillocks. There was a sound, scarcely more than a heavy thud. She was left in silence, with a breeze touching her face.
‘It’s crashed,’ she said to the horse. ‘It’s come down.’ She turned the animal on the path, making a hundred yards or more towards the road. Then she pulled it up and with an abrupt new excitement wheeled and began, cautiously at first but with increasing pace, to ride towards the bald skyline.
‘Parashots,’ nodded John Lampard, at the bar in the dance. ‘Much more warlike – aggressive – don’t you think than Local Defence Volunteers?’ The initials LDV, he knew, had come to mean Look, Duck and Vanish.
Robert sighed massively. ‘It’s about time somebody took us seriously,’ he said. He looked warm in his old dinner suit and stiff collar but he had insisted on wearing it; he had always worn it to the dance. It was a mark of distinction. His voice descended. ‘They’ve even threatened to cut off the unit telephone.’
‘Yes, I heard,’ said Lampard, regarding him seriously.
‘Just wait until the Hun comes,’ forecast Robert hopefully. ‘We don’t get any respect or consideration, let alone guns, and as for cutting off the phone . . . Can you see a Panzer division commander having a whip round to pay for petrol for the tanks?’ He grimaced and drank moodily. ‘The New Forest Arcadians haven’t improved over the years, have they?’ he observed.
As if the musicians had overheard they ceased playing and Mrs Ben Bennett approached the apron of the stage, her teeth clamped into a smile like a grille. ‘A waltz,’ she announced like someone giving an order. ‘General excuse-me waltz.’
‘Pigs, sir,’ offered Hob Hobson approaching Robert and John Lampard as the band scraped and blew into the measured tune. ‘Sally, Sally,’ they played, ‘pride of our alley.’ ‘Pigs, they reckon, sir,’ continued Hob. Unusually, he had drunk several pints. ‘For warning of the approach of an enemy. Pigs tethered around the village would set up such a row as we’d be bound to hear the Germans . . . or maybe geese.’
Robert regarded him kindly, as if grateful, at least, for the thought. ‘I don’t think we’ll have any difficulty in hearing the Huns, Hob,’ he observed. ‘The tanks squeak.’
‘Cage birds are good,’ persisted Hob, happy that Robert had treated his suggestion to an answer. ‘Detecting gas, they’re for. They use them down the coal mines for that, don’t they.’ He eyed Lampard, perhaps requiring confirmation, then mumbling excuses, turned and trundled away. ‘Get a few parrots,’ suggested Lampard. ‘They’d be able to shout.’
Elizabeth and Millie came and stood beside the men. The waltz revolved anti-clockwise around the floor. People sang as they danced. ‘Sally, Sally . . .’ It was a homely song and they now all chorused it, turning as though slowly revolving in a great vat, a turning tide of feet, sending up clouds of chalk, one, two, three . . . one, two, three . . . the voices raised; the men lustily, the women trying to sing sweetly. It touched Elizabeth deeply:
‘When skies are blue,
You’re beguiling,
And when they’re grey,
You’re still smiling, smiling . . .’
This was the British at bay.
Mary Mainprice, partnered by a shy soldier, stopped. ‘We’re going, mum,’ she said. She let go the soldier and began to dab her eyes. The soldier stood awkwardly. He removed the chalk from the toecaps of his boots by rubbing each one on the back of the opposite trouser leg, then reddened harshly when he saw Robert had seen him do it. ‘Chalk, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘Gets everywhere.’
‘To America,’ confirmed Mary. ‘The children and me. They say it will be soon.’ Hurriedly her eyes went in the direction of Robert and John. Both looked away and moved, conversing, towards the bar. The woman seemed relieved they had gone. ‘It’s like I’m running away. But I’m only thinking about the kiddies.’
Elizabeth patted her hand. ‘You are doing your best for them,’ she assured.
Mary smiled gratefully. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ she said to the soldier. She returned to Elizabeth and Millie. ‘They said they’d give us a week’s notice of sailing. The boys are all full of it, of course, going to America, so is the little girl, but I don’t know. Going across the sea frightens me, what with their father in Singapore and not knowing what to do. He worries because nothing’s happening to him out there and we’re here. You’ll have to get somebody else to clean, mum. My sister Marigold can do it.’
Millie said: ‘They wouldn’t send children if they didn’t think it was safe, Mary, I’m sure of that. No wonder they’re excited.’
Mary Mainprice sighed. ‘I still don’t rightly know,’ she sniffed. She moved back towards the soldier, marching quietly on the spot. ‘I’ll see everybody before we go. It might be for always.’
The waltz finished and the last reluctant voice died away. Robert returned with some drinks for the ladies. They stood in a silent group then, watching the village people. ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ was next. They joined partners and began once again the steady revolution around the room.
‘Ah,’ said Elizabeth with pleasure, ‘Harry’s here.’
Her son came in the door, and grinning, came towards them. He kissed his mother and Millie. Robert said: ‘We’re all safe tonight then. They wouldn’t have let you out if they thought Jerry was going to try it.’
‘I had a word with Hitler,’ said Harry. He accepted a drink, then touched Millie’s arm. ‘Want to hop?’ he suggested. ‘It’ll all be finished before long.’
Millie looked surprised. As they moved on to the floor she said in his ear, ‘You’re wasting your time, sailor. I’m married.’
‘I don’t care,’ he whispered. ‘Life’s too short.’ He looked around the floor.
‘She’s not here,’ said Millie.
‘Bess?’
‘Who else? She hasn’t turned up at all.’
‘You’ll do,’ he said, putting his cheek next to hers.
‘Any port in a storm.’
They stopped talking and danced quietly together for a while, her breasts against his jacket. ‘A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square,’ hummed Harry. ‘I wonder how many people in Binford have ever been to Berkeley Square?’
‘Not many,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been to London for years.’ When she spoke her lips brushed his ear. ‘At least now they’ve stopped playing about hanging the washing on the Siegfried line.’
‘It sounds a bit silly after what’s happened,’ he said. He glanced towards the door for Bess.
Millie said: ‘James said it comes from a song called something like: “When we are married we’ll have sausages for tea.” ’
He laughe
d, surprised. ‘Fancy James knowing that.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought.’
Elizabeth watched them with affection. Robert said: ‘Some things never never change, do they?’ He performed a brief bow. ‘May I have the pleasure?’
Elizabeth gave a mock curtsy. ‘Of course,’ she said. They moved on to the floor. ‘Any quickstep nonsense and we leave,’ suggested Robert. She nodded. He had never been a good dancer, apparently having to think of each step. They revolved heavily around the room. Yes, it was still the same, and yet, Elizabeth thought, there were some missing. Some would never be there again. Old Sonny, who had always worn his best blue suit, waistcoat and white silk muffler, the muffler thrown back across his shoulder like the daredevil scarf of some air ace. Mary Mainprice’s husband, who had been an extravagant exponent of the South American Tango, flexing his knees, and pointing his thin wife across the floor, like a lance.
There were others, serving far away, now only known by their awkward letters home, some in ships on the oceans; some already in distant graves, far from Binford.
It was getting late. Smoke hung like a canopy in the hall, the chalk still sent up its mystic puffs, the band blared through the lit haze, and the bar was still clinking with glasses and the sound of hearty voices. At the end of the waltz, Mrs Ben Bennett advanced to the fore of the New Forest Arcadians and announced: ‘Now – all form a ring for the Hokey Cokey!
‘Come on, Robert,’ grinned Elizabeth mischievously. ‘Even you can do this.’ Millie and Harry came to join them.
‘But . . . it’s . . .’ Robert protested, ‘ridiculous!’
The Dearest and the Best Page 32
