That Burning Summer

by Lydia Syson

  … you will also block the roads by which our own armies will advance to turn the Germans out. The thought of it. Stuck between armies on that triangle of land, so close to France.

  Ernest wished Peggy would take everything more seriously. It was all very well making light of it, always trying to pretend everything was normal, but it quite clearly wasn’t.

  He made a quick swerve to avoid falling into a huge mound of seakale, white flowers bending in the wind, silvery-green leaves fleshy and firm. And that was as far as he got. Coming over the next rise of shingle, he was faced with a wall of coiled wire, barbed and springy, and twice his height. It stretched in both directions, as far as he could see. All the way to Dungeness. All the way to Rye. There were low concrete buildings dotted along the coast which hadn’t been there before: blockhouses, grayer than the tawny shingle, with dark, narrow window holes like half-closed eyes.

  He began to sweat. He was in a wronger place than he’d thought. There must have been some checkpoint he’d missed. You were meant to have a pass to come here, he remembered. But they couldn’t block every sheeptrack. Someone would see him now. They’d ask him for a pass and he didn’t have one. He should have thought about that before. That’s just your trouble. You don’t think. That’s what everyone always told him. But it wasn’t true. He did think. All the time. He wished he could stop thinking sometimes.

  Ernest turned and ran back to his bike, slipping and sliding on stones that rolled away from him. He swung his leg over the crossbar and headed back towards the Marsh, the wind roaring in his ears.

  Between the road and his old house was a new fence, hung with signs in threatening capitals.

  WARNING

  COASTAL DISTRICTS OF ROMNEY MARSH, LYDD, AND NEW ROMNEY

  Under DEFENCE REGULATION NO. 38A any stealing or scrounging from evacuated houses or damaged premises in these areas renders the offender liable to be charged with the crime of LOOTING

  And subject, on conviction, to be sentenced to PENAL SERVITUDE OR DEATH

  Penal servitude. That was hard labor, wasn’t it? He wasn’t sure if you could scrounge from your own house. They had left in such a hurry. But then again, Dad’s binoculars probably weren’t there any more, and the house was no longer theirs, and at least Ernest had rescued his own. He sped on.

  Passing the church, Ernest looked up at the clock on its tower. The bells had been silent for more than a month. If you heard them now, it meant only one thing: the invasion. The corner of his gas-mask box dug into his back as he pedaled, reminding him that he hadn’t practiced putting it on yet that day.

  Left at Hawthorn Corner, and the flatness stretched out for miles. But you’d think someone had thrown a junkyard down in these fields, from a great height. Here and there, old bedsteads pointed rusty springs at the sky. He saw an upside-down plow and a little further on, huge stakes driven into the earth, angled towards France.

  When the road bent right to run alongside the sewer, Ernest began to feel better. They’d have a job machine-gunning him from the air here, protected as he was by the line of low trees and bushes that followed the water. He slowed down a little. And anyway, he wasn’t running away, but quite the opposite. But how would they know he was trying to stay put? Still, he’d skirt round Brookland and stick to the quieter lanes, and then he’d be even less visible. On the footpath from Poplar Hall, the trees met over your head.

  Then he did hear a plane. Faintly at first, but getting louder with speed. It sounded odd. Different from usual. Lower maybe, and uneven, as though the engine was catching its breath. Could be one of ours coming home, hoped Ernest, but it was hard to tell without looking. A glance round and up at the sky over his shoulder. He wobbled, righted himself, lost his footing on the pedals, and wobbled again. As the bike swerved into the long grass at the side of the lane, its front wheel hit a rock, and the world turned upside down.

  The roaring grew louder. Ernest didn’t have time to grope for his glasses. From the sound of things, he ought to be getting to his feet and running for his life after all. But his legs were all tangled up in the bike and his shoe was stuck, and wasn’t he meant to “stay put”? So he crossed his fingers and tried to lie as still as he possibly could.

  Blurred black smoke stained the clouds. Perhaps the plane was moving at a strange angle. Ernest squinted. The rhythm of the engine stuttered again, and his heart beat faster. But the danger was over almost before he’d begun to take it in. No machine guns rattled. No bombs fell. The plane simply headed in across the Marsh, unsteady and ever more blurry.

  Feeling around for the glasses, his hand closed on stinging nettles. Ouch. He sucked the rising bumps and squinted up again. If he squished his eyelids in a special way, he could make things a bit clearer. For a short time.

  He wished he could be like Victor. “There’s a flying pencil,” he’d say, when all the others were still shielding their eyes from the sun. “A Dornier” he’d repeat, scornful of their ignorance. Knew every silhouette, friend and foe, from miles and miles off even. All the numbers too, the ones that Ernest could never remember, and the engine sizes and all that kind of thing. Merlins and Vickers and all that. And the uniforms. Ernest wished he had a brother in the RAF too, someone who could tell him stuff like that. He corrected himself quickly and guiltily. Victor Velvick had had a brother. Not any more.

  Then he noticed the sudden silence. Just a moment of stillness. Followed by a kind of tearing, rushing sound, as if somebody were ripping the clouds.

  Something was falling out of the sky. Not just falling, but hurtling down, like a meteorite or something. Orange and black. That was all Ernest could make out. The plane was on fire. What else could it be? He struggled to extricate himself, and tried to work out where it would come down. Walland Marsh? Thereabouts.

  Then nothing. Silence, briefly broken by the laughter of frogs.

  Ernest finished untangling his legs from the bike frame and got himself and the machine upright again. He spun the front wheel a few times to check it wasn’t buckled. A glint of sun caught his eye. His glasses were balanced in the reeds at the edge of the drainage ditch.

  4

  The post office looked busy, which was annoying. Not much Peggy could do about that. She hugged the parcel to her chest to hide the address and pushed open the door. The bell’s brassy jangle sounded louder and harsher than usual in the silence of voices that descended.

  There were six or seven women clustered around the counter. Peggy knew them all. They fell away when she came in, as if they’d agreed in advance. She was sure they must be staring, but she refused to look anywhere other than straight ahead. She swallowed—they probably noticed—and then she marched forward, up to Mrs. Velvick, plonking her parcel face down on the counter. The postmistress paused with her right hand raised high, inky stamp waiting to fall. You’d think Sleeping Beauty had just stumbled upon the spindle, thought Peggy, eyes fixed on the locket that hung on Mrs. Velvick’s black-knitted bosom.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Velvick,” said Peggy, spreading her arms a little further apart on the counter, and leaning over the package. Heat rose through her body. Her neck prickled. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Velvick didn’t speak. That locket. Had she always worn it? Peggy had a dim memory of the older Velvick boy. He had only been a few years ahead of her at the Council School. If she stared hard enough, she could conjure up his freckled face. It must be him in there, surely. If you got your nail under the silver catch, opened that little oval door. All that was left of him now.

  The postmistress pulled the parcel towards her and tilted it alarmingly, causing Peggy to start.

  “I’ll have to see how much it weighs,” said Mrs. Velvick without expression, turning towards the scales.

  So Peggy tried a different tactic. She spun round swiftly and smiled brightly at everyone. When she looked properly she realized that Jeannie’s mother was there. That helped.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ashbee. How’s Jeannie? Enjoying t
he new job?” Peggy got quickly into her stride, and swayed slightly from side to side as she spoke. “Oh, goodness! Mrs. Aldridge … I didn’t see you there … have you had a postcard from Daphne yet? June said she’d heard the little ones were having a super time at Weston-super-Mare.” That was a lie, of course. She’d heard no news at all about the children who’d been evacuated as soon as the term finished. She laughed, tossing her hair like June and including everyone in her gaiety, so that all attention stayed fixed on her smile. “Well, I suppose they would, wouldn’t they? It being ‘super’ and all that!”

  God. If only she could shut up. They’d be wondering what had got into her. She shot a look back over her shoulder. Mrs. Velvick was moistening stamps on her little round sponge. Her thin gray eyebrows were a good inch higher than usual, pushing tight lines of wrinkles into the skin of her forehead, exposing more than ever the dark hollows and red rims of her eyes.

  “I almost wish I was still young enough to be evacuated myself,” Peggy went on, spinning round, waving her hands, keeping moving, keeping all eyes on herself and away from the parcel. “Such an adventure! But of course Ernest and I have our warwork on the farm to do. Uncle Fred says he doesn’t know what he’d do without us. Ninepence, did you say, Mrs. Velvick? Goodness! Well, here you are.”

  The coins clinked on the counter.

  “Anything else … Miss Fisher?” Mrs. Velvick narrowed her eyes.

  The parcel was safely in the sack behind the counter. Nobody could possibly have read the words on the label. Though anyone would think Peggy was tipsy, the way she was carrying on. Tipsy! At sixteen, and half-past four on a Tuesday afternoon. As if.

  “No, no. That’s lovely, thank you very much,” Peggy chirped, turning back to the others again. “Actually, I ought to be getting back now. But I’ll say hello to my mother from you, shall I, Miss Winterbourne?”

  “Oh yes, of course. Would you do that, dear?” Miss Winterbourne looked a little flustered, and put a hand up to pat her gray bun. Peggy could never remember which Miss Winterbourne was which when only one was there—the three elderly sisters looked exactly the same to her—but what did that matter? She had no intention of passing on any such message. Her hands now blissfully free, she waved merrily, taking care to look every woman in the shop firmly in the eye as she left.

  “Cheerio, then!”

  5

  He could have been anywhere. Lying with twisted hips, white silk billowing half-heartedly around him, Henryk gazed up at a sky that told him nothing. It was the exact shade of blue he remembered from that first attack, late last summer, back in Poland. Once again, he was struck by the wrongness of its pure intensity.

  The sky was not quite empty. Immediately above, a v-shaped flock of geese crossed his vision, honking a few times as it passed.

  That twitching in his fingers had started up again, and in his right calf, and then just behind one eye. Limb by limb, Henryk began to test his body. Between his legs, he felt bruised and achy—the jerk of his harness had been like a kick in the crotch. As he shifted, feeling tenderly for damage, the movement released an even stronger ache in his armpits. His head ached too.

  He was exhausted, but he would have to wait for sleep to come. Sit it out. Three days on Benzedrine and his mind was like a runaway train. Wakey-wakey.

  Henryk curled up in the grass and thistles like a baby and rubbed the itchy skin on his jaw. He pulled the slithering material around him and over his head. Its softness against his face weakened him further. He could have wrapped himself up in it entirely, cocooning his body in its gentle shroud. The white silk absorbed the sun, its warmth and light quickly penetrating to his skin and hair. It did nothing to relieve the aching coldness grinding in his chest.

  There had been no shrouds for his sisters. No graves either probably, though he wondered if he would ever know. Passing feet on pavements, perhaps. Eyes averted. Strangers and friends turning away. And nothing he could do, then or now. He might as well sleep forever himself. He might as well. He might as well.

  A harsh burst of noise from the ditch at the edge of the pasture shocked him back into awareness. He sat up quickly and dizzily. The mocking noise came again, followed by a splash, and Henryk realized with a weak laugh of his own that his audience was just a frog.

  But he wanted to keep it that way. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, Henryk knelt to pack up his parachute. He fumbled with the straps, hardly able to believe that nobody had seen him land. But the more he looked around, the more he could believe it. Again, he had the sense of being marooned in a landscape where nothing was as it seemed. A slight dip or rise might prove an impasse or a crossing place. Some things you could see coming for miles. Others sprang up in your face at the very last moment.

  Like the dragonflies which flew over the ditchwater, electric-blue bodies constantly dipping and zigzagging, as if avoiding tracer. Changing course to keep out of the way. Dragonflies as big as birds, birds as small as butterflies; white butterflies like fluttering leaves of paper, notes scattering in the wind, escaped pages of books. All rising from nowhere to hit your gaze.

  About fifty yards away, Henryk noticed a low line of trees thicker than most. He reckoned he could make it that far. It would get him out of sight.

  6

  Mum arrived back at the farm as Ernest skidded round the gatepost. Their bicycles almost collided.

  “Oh, Ernest, calm down, do,” she said, feet braced on the ground. She seemed quite shaken. “What’s the hurry?” And she forced out one of her stiff little laughs, the kind she only did when there was nothing to laugh at.

  “A plane. I saw a plane. Another one. It must have come down over there somewhere. Didn’t you see?”

  He was waving his arms towards Appledore, though he wasn’t entirely sure it was the right direction.

  Alarm was infectious. Peggy came running out too, followed by Aunt Myra, and June with her sleeves rolled up, and the baby in her arms, both looking as immaculate as ever.

  “What is it?”

  “A plane. Ernest saw a plane.” Was there a hint of pride in Mum’s voice?

  “One of ours?” asked June.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Never mind. It’s not easy.” Mum hurried to head off Aunt Myra’s tutting.

  “Have you told your uncle? No, of course you haven’t.”

  “Give him a chance, Mum,” said June. “How could he? They’re practicing tonight, aren’t they?”

  Aunt Myra wasn’t listening. She wasn’t much of a listener at the best of times, and Ernest wasn’t always quick at getting his words out. His aunt usually had more than enough to say for both of them.

  “Will you … no, maybe I’d better go,” said Mum. She looked gray and exhausted, pushing back the hair that had escaped her headscarf and setting her pedal again, ready.

  “I’ll go,” offered Peggy.

  “No, I need to,” Ernest said quickly. “I was the one who saw it.” He didn’t see why Mum had to keep on working in the munitions factory when it made her so tired. Uncle Fred was always saying there was no need: it was far too much on top of all the farm work, and there’d be even more soon with all the men leaving, and wasn’t that a reserved occupation anyway? Ernest was sure Dad wouldn’t like it, if he knew, which maybe he didn’t. But Mum never took any notice. Just talked about “her bit,” and came back later and later. “At the Red Lion, are they?”

  “That’s right. You’ll be quick?”

  “Of course,” Ernest shouted over his shoulder, speeding off already, thrilled to be useful. “And Mum—don’t forget to put your bike away!”

  It was hard to see how a German parachutist might invade London on a bicycle—surely they’d be bringing tanks with them? But best not to break the rules.

  Ernest cycled to the pub so fast that he could barely get the words out as he charged into the side garden. Six or seven farmers and farmhands were standing round a blackboard in their shirtsleeves, chanting gutterally and incomprehensibly at U
ncle Fred. They all looked sweaty—straight from the fields—and wore armbands with LDV in black letters. A pile of pitchforks and shotguns leaned against the fence. Gordon Ramsgate, who had once been in Peggy’s class, was gripping an ancient muzzleloader. The Local Defence Volunteers were learning German.

  “Pistole Ablegen!” they roared in unison. “Put down your revolver! Hände Hoch! Hands up!”

  “Not you, you chump!”

  Ernest, still panting, had raised his own hands without thinking.

  “Just a moment, lads.” Uncle Fred gave him an encouraging look. “What’s the problem, Ernest? Did Myra send you?”

  “Yes. No. Mum did. There’s another plane come down.”

  “On our land?”

  “Don’t think so. Don’t know. Maybe. But I definitely saw it fall. It was on fire. It was awful. You’ve got to find it.”

  “Hang on a minute. Calm down. Just tell me nice and slow.’”

  “I think it’s over that way.” Now he really wasn’t sure where he should be pointing. “Or over there.” Ernest felt himself getting hot and bothered. He wondered if the others were laughing at him, but he had his back to them and certainly wasn’t going to turn round to find out.

  “We don’t want any false alarms, now,” said Fred, catching someone’s eye.

  “It isn’t a false alarm. Honest. I saw it.” Ernest held on to some invisible handlebars, and swiveled them experimentally, trying to work out where the sun had been when he came off his bike earlier. He turned and pointed again, this time in a slightly different direction. “It was going that way, definitely. I saw the smoke. I really did.” And before they could ask, “But I don’t know if it was ours or not. I couldn’t tell.”

  “That’s OK. You wouldn’t be the first. Let’s go then, quick march. See if it’s recoverable.” Then Fred added, “Umkehren weiter marschieren … Umkayran vyetah marcheeayrun. What does that mean?”