Five Boys

by Mick Jackson

  The bees let out a great roar and rose up in a rapture. The sun was obscured again. Then the bees rolled and turned above the grave, drew themselves together and swept off down the lane.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Peter and Cathy Kiddle were my unpaid rural consultants on this book—an inexhaustible source of local knowledge and hospitality. Their home became my West Country HQ.

  A one-day beekeeping workshop by Cathy Maund in the mid-90s first alerted me to the potential in the beehive. More recently, Stephen Kelly let me accompany him on his rounds, resisted my ignorance with grace and ultimately encouraged me in my own tentative efforts at keeping bees.

  Charlie Bellingham, Len Collict, Jean Hadley, Stanbury Hocking, Jean Parnell, Robert Tucker, Bert Ward and Pam Wills were all generous, informative and hugely entertaining. My conversations with them were the highlight of the writing of this book.

  Bill Sanders, Marion Huang and Carole Stevens know a thing or two about bell ringing. Any sense of authenticity in that department is to their credit; any flaws or inconsistencies are mine.

  Thanks to the staff of the library and sound archive at the Imperial War Museum, to George Lovell for his religious instruction and Charles Boyle at Faber for his endless patience.

  Most of all, heartfelt thanks to Derek Johns, Jon Riley and Cath Laing who, over the years, have given me more support, good advice and guidance than any writer has a right to expect.

  M. J.

  About the Author

  MLCK JACKSON is the author of The Underground Man, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award. He lives in Brighton, England.

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  About the Book

  When Bobby is evacuated from London to a remote Devonshire village, a strange new chapter of his life begins. Empty of its menfolk, the village is given over to the “stay behinds”: the women, the old and young, and five terrifying boys who accuse Bobby of being a Nazi spy. Then, there is the enigmatic Bee King, a mysterious figure who exercises a powerful, hypnotic influence on the village, and especially the boys.

  As the days wind down to the D-day invasion and the Allied soldiers crash the beaches along the French coast, the villagers will enact their own drama–a tense interplay of events that will engulf them all and ultimately reveal the truth about the Bee King.

  Brilliantly captivating and thoroughly researched, Five Boys is the tale of the war’s impact on the home front, bringing to light a lost place and time with an expert touch.

  ALSO BY MICK JACKSON

  The Underground Man

  Copyright

  First published in 2001 by Faber and Faber Limited.

  FIVE BOYS. Copyright © 2001 by Mick Jackson.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03190-7

  FIRST U.S. EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN 0-06-001394-X

  02 03 04 05 06 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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