‘Oh, Jack!’ Poppy laughed. ‘Jack, that really is most elegant. Thank you. Thank you very much.’
‘No, Poppy, not at all,’ Jack growled, sticking his pipe in his mouth. ‘Thank you. Now I’m going to rejoin the party, and if you know what’s good for you you will too.’
The Dornier, still weighed down by its unused high explosive bombs, was now no more than one dance away, no more than a tune. But far below the Flying Pencil there were others who were not at play but at work – a new unit, working a brand new installation not more than a mile from Eden. And it was a local man on watch who first heard the drone, who sounded the alarm to his unit and who finally pinpointed a raider homeward bound.
Actually it was Scott who was the surprise hit of the party, most especially after he had reappeared with a large cloth bag tied tightly at the neck with a coloured cord, which he produced at the table at which now sat Poppy, Kate, Eugene, Marjorie and Billy. The bag immediately aroused Billy’s interest. Scott had hardly sat down before Billy grabbed it and tried to undo it.
‘Time they altered the call-up age,’ Scott told him, narrowing his eyes in mock anger at Billy. ‘High time they reduced it to fourteen.’
‘But what’s in it?’ Billy demanded. ‘Is it a present for someone?’
‘That depends on how people see it,’ Scott replied. ‘It also depends a lot on my lip.’
‘Your lip?’ Billy frowned deeply. ‘What’s it got to do with your lip?’
‘Everything,’ Scott said, having undone the cord and produced from the cloth bag a shimmering highly polished silver cornet.
‘Wow!’ Billy gasped. ‘Can you play that?’
Scott certainly could. He introduced himself to the band, talked through a few numbers, jotted down some chord sequences for the pianist, guitarist and bass player, and blew a few perfect and clear notes by himself to make sure his lip was in, as he had explained to Billy – then tapped the band in to ‘Falling In Love With Love’.
One chorus in and everyone who hadn’t danced before now got up and danced. By the time Scott’s cornet was soaring over the band with a slow and heartbreaking version of ‘September Song’, the great hall was a mass of people dancing, and those who weren’t dancing stood at the foot of the bandstand just to listen to the wonderful music.
‘“I Can’t Get Started”!’ someone called.
‘“Pennies From Heaven”!’ someone else suggested.
‘“I Can’t Get Started”!’ the first voice insisted.
‘The man’s right,’ Eugene agreed, getting up on the rostrum and taking hold of the microphone. ‘Play it like Bunny. Play it like Berigan and I’ll croon it like Crosby.’
All over the hall the candles in their jars sputtered and danced and flickered, as Eugene sang and Scott played.
‘I have the area, Captain,’ the bombardier’s voice came through the captain’s headset. ‘I have found a good place for us to drop.’
‘It needs to be soon and it needs to be now,’ the captain replied. ‘You are quite certain this is just land? No buildings? No houses, no village?’
‘Just land, captain. What they call downland I believe.’
‘Are we over it now?’
‘One minute to target, sir,’ the bombardier replied, looking through his sights, hoping to get some sort of image of the huge grand house he believed now lay almost directly below them. But just as he was taking perfect aim, something hit the tail plane of the Dornier, tearing half of it away. The plane shook violently, shuddered and started to tilt alarmingly.
‘Flak!’ the captain called as he looked out of his side window. ‘Anti-aircraft battery ten degrees west! Seems to have taken out our rudder! Losing control fast!’
More shells hit the already stricken craft, knocking it first sideways and then upwards as a shell exploded directly under the left wing, holing the fuselage and letting a sudden great gale of air into the cabin.
‘Prepare to bail out!’ the captain called. ‘Prepare to jump! Go on! Jump! Jump everyone! Everyone jump!’
But not until he had opened his bomb doors, the bombardier crouched over his sights decided. If they were going down then let them feel the full and mighty force of his bombs. Let them be blown to the next life by the might of the great Reichsmarschall’s air force.
‘Bombs away!’ he called, but no one was listening. No one heard his cry because they were already earthbound, floating down on umbrellas of silk. The bombs had plunged past them in the dark, but they had fallen straight down, while the airmen who had already bailed out were being gently blown southwards, away from the targeted house far below.
‘Bombs away!’ the bombardier called again joyously, as he too prepared to bail out. But it was too late for him. Another shell smashed into the aircraft directly below his position, killing him instantly and causing the plane to explode seconds later. The sky was filled with a huge orange fireball that seemed to hang in the air before fragmenting to fall in myriad pieces on to the downland below.
The band had just finished playing. Scott was swinging his cornet on one hand while wrapping his free arm round Eugene’s shoulder, who was taking an extravagant bow to wild and happy applause, when everyone stopped still as they heard the unmistakable crump of a bomb exploding somewhere nearby. Everyone either threw themselves to the floor, to take cover under the tables, or ran to the huge double staircase to shelter under the overhang. One or two even made it down to the cellars. There was silence everywhere.
There had been no siren, at least not one anyone in the hall had heard, yet that was definitely the sound of a bomb they had heard exploding.
Everyone waited, hands over heads or ears, many people embracing whoever it was that lay nearest to them. The absolute silence continued and because it was absolute one or two people began slowly to look about and wonder. There was no damage to the house, at least none that was visible.
Eugene, Scott and Major Folkestone were the three who had refused to take cover, running instead to the great front doors that they had flung open to see what if any the damage was. In the clear frosty moonlit night they could quite clearly see where the bomb had fallen, down by the lake where it had destroyed many of the ancient oak trees, leaving a huge crater in the ground. The fact that the waters of the lake were still greatly disturbed on a windless night suggested that if any other bombs had fallen, that was where they now lay – at the bottom of the ornamental water.
Eugene saw them first – pointing up to the sky where, illuminated in the bright whiteness of moonlight, three parachutists could be seen descending, the remains of their aircraft having already preceded them to earth beyond the line of hills that sheltered Eden.
Major Folkestone, once more on duty, ran up the steps to the house snapping out orders. Almost immediately the resident platoon of soldiers ran out of the hall, pulling on jackets and tin hats and slinging loaded rifles over their shoulders as they rushed off to capture the falling airmen. They were followed by the rest of the party.
Everyone began to hurry towards the home paddock, so that by the time the three men landed in the frozen grass there were a dozen soldiers bearing down on them, followed by at least three dozen more civilians, armed with sticks, boulders and an assortment of home-made weaponry. As the rest of the party began to arrive they found Billy was already at the paddock fence, prevented from hopping over and taking the first German prisoner by Major Folkestone.
As the three German airmen picked themselves slowly up off the ground, and stepped out of the parachute harness, the soldiers under Major Folkestone’s command dropped to one knee and took aim. The major barked an order in German, aiming his own pistol at the nearest airman, the captain of the Dornier. Everyone fell to silence.
The captain of the stricken aircraft called to Major Folkestone, in perfect English, that they were going to reach for their pistols and throw them to the ground. Major Folkestone thanked him but called back that if anyone tried to shoot they would be killed immediately. The capt
ain responded that he understood perfectly and then surrendered his weapons to the frosted grass in front of him. His two fellow crew members did the same and then they all three put their hands on their heads.
Marjorie left her group of friends and walked down to the paddocks, not noticing the bitter cold, intent only on getting sight of the enemy. Billy was standing by the paddock gate that one of the soldiers had swung open, hands straight down by his sides, head unmoving as he watched.
The soldiers now surrounded the three airmen, outnumbering them to an almost absurd degree. With rifles at the ready, some still aimed and trained, they steered the airmen out of the field ahead of them. The captain, a short, handsome man, with blond hair cropped close and eyes that seemed to be more humorous than serious, walked alongside his two airmen with a nonchalance that must have belied his feelings. He must have hurt himself on landing, because he limped, and so eventually was helped by one of the soldiers, who finally lit a cigarette and put it between his lips.
As they approached the crowd of people waiting, some of whom drew instinctively back, the captain nodded and raised one hand in salute. Everyone stared at him, except Billy who now detached himself from the gate and carefully approached the airmen in order to get a better look.
‘Ah, hallo,’ the captain said, seeing the boy. ‘And how old are you?’
‘Me?’ Billy wondered. ‘Me, I’m fourteen.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Billy. My name’s Billy.’
‘Good.’ The captain smiled and tilted his head to get a better look at the boy who was now walking alongside him. ‘You’re a good-looking chap, Billy,’ he said. ‘And you know what? I have a young brother at home just the same age as you are.’
He ruffled Billy’s hair and walked on with a smile. Billy frowned, stroked his hair back into place, then hurried on to catch up so that he could walk alongside the captain all the way back to the house where a number of the partygoers were still waiting. Poppy watched intently as the figure of Major Folkestone in his evening dress, still carrying his pistol in hand, approached the front steps of the great house. To the major’s right were the three captured airmen, and to their right young Billy, with Marjorie walking by his side. Behind were the armed soldiers, outnumbering their prisoners by at least four to one, while behind them were the men and women of Eden Park. No one talked. All that could be heard was the sound of many footfalls on the frozen gravel. Until another sound was heard, the silver sound of a cornet, clear as a clarion on the winter night air. When the playing started, everyone stopped, staring at the silhouetted figure of Scott as he played ‘Silent Night’. The three airmen stood looking up at him from the foot of the steps, none of them moving as the notes fled across the frosty ground, to finally bury themselves in the English countryside.
If you enjoyed Daughters of Eden, look out for Charlotte Bingham’s next novel The House of Flowers.
Charlotte Bingham would like to invite you to visit her website at www.charlottebingham.com
Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 Page 42
