by Lydia Syson
Their efforts to root out the thistles out were interrupted so often that day that after a while even the children stayed out when the planes came over, retreating only to the nearest ditch, which suited Ernest. He hated the cellar, hated the thought of being buried alive. Hiding in ditches, heads down, listening, they felt the sun hot on their backs. The first warnings came from Lydd or Rye, depending on the wind direction. It changed so often on the Marsh. The sirens’ faint moanings penetrated your consciousness like a half-remembered dream, the all-clears often running into the alerts. Sometimes you only became aware of the change when you saw another worker suddenly stopping, half-bowed over his hoe, or mid-swing, hoiking weeds onto a shared pile. It was like a game of musical statues. Between sirens, they took it in turns to read the sky-writing, endlessly trying to interpret the loops and swirls that now punctuated the heavens.
When they stopped to eat, Ernest sat apart from the others. He picked the tiny bristles from his fingers one by one and studied the leaflet again. He kept coming back to one sentence in particular. It had not struck him much before. You must know in advance who is to take command, who is to be second in command, and how orders are to be transmitted.
He should go back. He had to see this Henryk on his own, without Peggy, he decided. You just had to work things out for yourself. That was the point. You couldn’t take anybody else’s word for anything.
TRY TO CHECK YOUR FACTS, the leaflet said.
Timing his chicken-feeding to catch the end of evening milking, he caught Peggy in the cowshed later. She was wiping down Marge’s udder, and didn’t look up at first. Slowly and deliberately, she hung the cloth up to dry, moved the bucket of milk out of kicking range and leaned against the cow, arms folded, waiting for Ernest to speak. Marge turned her head and watched him curiously too.
Ernest looked at the enamel dish in his hands, now empty. He began to feed it round like a steering wheel, while he decided where to start.
“I was just wondering … What have you got for Henryk to eat today?” he said.
“I hid some of my rabbit pie last night. I thought you’d noticed. Why?”
“I can hide some of my breakfast tomorrow. I’m never that hungry anyway.”
Peggy’s face softened.
“Thank you. And thanks for saying you’d eaten that bread.”
“It’s OK.” Ernest paused. “It must be hard, finding enough food,” he said.
“It is. I’m always hungry.” On cue, her stomach let out a high, spiraling groan. Just thinking about food was enough to set it off.
“I’ll ask for seconds then. It’s easier for me. Like they keep saying, I’m a growing boy.”
Peggy laughed.
“Shame you’re not.”
She meant it in a friendly way, so Ernest didn’t mind. He’d like to be taller, but it wouldn’t make that much difference to things. And he thought he’d probably get there in the end. Some people just took longer.
“Let’s get a move on then,” said Peggy. “You let Marge out, and I’ll take the milk.”
Ernest knew this chain of command. He unlatched the half-door and gave the cow a friendly slap on the rump. She was a good sort really. He liked her eyelashes. She didn’t make trouble. Just mess. Peggy looked from the splattered cowpat on the stone floor to the scraper, and he got to work.
“I suppose we’ll have to get more rabbits soon?” he asked, as she bolted the door.
“I think so. It’s no good being squeamish. Some things just have to be done,” said Peggy.
What is it like? Ernest didn’t ask that either. Some of the boys at school used to catch rabbits with their bare hands down on Denge Marsh.
“I think I’d rather start with target practice,” he said instead. “So I can be certain of getting it right.”
“Yes, it’s better to be certain. Yesterday was sheer luck. I need to practice too. We can do it together.”
Ernest knew he had to get the important question out before they got to the back door.
“By the way, you know Henryk?” Obviously.
“Yes,” Peggy replied slowly, her face closing again. “I do.”
“Do you … do you think I could take him his food tomorrow?”
She stopped. She scrutinized Ernest, chewing on her lower lip, weighing things up. He had counted to sixteen by the time she spoke again.
“Yes. Why not?”
39
The handbag’s silvery jaw snapped shut. Peggy looked up. Too late.
“So it is you …”
June stood in the doorway, languorous as ever in duck-egg blue, but looking more amused than angry. Peggy pushed the bag across the hall table as if it might contaminate her. The rising heat in her body made her think of the word “red-handed.”
“I was afraid it was Ernest who’d taken them. You only needed to say, you know,” June went on. “You didn’t have to stoop to this.”
Peggy mumbled something about a mistake, and June’s mouth twisted thoughtfully, while her hand reached for the bag.
“And this explains your late-night wanderings too, I suppose. I had a feeling it wasn’t sunsets you were after. How many have you left me this time, then? I’m gasping.”
And now she was checking the packet. Peggy went from hot to cold. She was glad the hall was dark. But she could hardly have miscalculated worse. If only she hadn’t finally put those battered cigarettes back—or if she’d done it sooner—she might have got away with it. She hated stealing from June, of all people.
“It was a mistake. I—I just tried one. I was putting the others back.”
“So I see.”
The broken one she’d dropped by the sluice and watched float away. The others had been forgotten in the pocket of her cardigan.
“But it was horrible. Really horrible.” Peggy repeated what Jeannie had told her a few months earlier. “It made my throat burn. Stupid really.” She tutted herself. “I don’t think I’ll ever be glamorous enough to smoke properly.”
There. That was quite convincing, wasn’t it?
“Oh, sweetheart!” laughed June. “No need to be defeatist. I’ll teach you—if you really want me to.”
“Will you?” Should she? Peggy wasn’t actually sure how impressed Henryk would be if she suddenly turned up and started blowing smoke at him as if she thought she was Greta Garbo.
“Maybe. I can’t keep us both in ciggies on my own, and we’d better not tell your mum, but I dare say I can find a way.”
Hand on hip, June looked Peggy up and down. Then she reached forward and adjusted a hairpin.
“Look, you just need to roll it back properly at the front. Like this. Actually, if it’s glamour you’re after, I’ve another idea. Come with me.”
Peggy followed June upstairs and into the bedroom, inching past Claudette’s cot to sit on the bed. The room smelled sweeter than hers and Ernest’s, of powder and rosewater and other mysteries. She leaned forward to straighten the little row of pots on the dressing-table. June was already on her knees, rummaging through the bottom drawer of the wardrobe.
“I’m sure they’re in here somewhere … don’t know where else I’d have put them anyway. Aha!”
A small package landed on Peggy’s lap, flat, light, and wrapped in tissue paper.
“You might as well have them. My figure just hasn’t been the same since Claudie,” said June, her own hands encircling her still slender waist. “Don’t suppose I’ll ever get them on again. I’ll make myself some bigger ones as soon as I can get my hands on some more silk.”
Knickers. Two pairs of swirling gossamer knickers—handstitched, cream-colored, as French as you like—beautifully ironed and giving off the faint, prickling scent of mothballs.
“Oh, June … can I … do you really …?” Peggy held their softness to her face, and couldn’t believe her luck.
“Have them … they’re a piece of cake to make, as a matter of fact. Look … it’s just a big circle really, with another cut out from the middle.
That’s how you get that nice floaty effect. On the bias. I’ll teach you that too, if you like.”
Peggy gave June a huge kiss, and she laughed again.
“It’s just a couple of pairs of knickers … hardly the crown jewels! But I’m glad you like ’em.”
“Oh I do. I really do. I can’t wait to try them on.”
She couldn’t believe her luck, on every front. It had to be a good omen, didn’t it?
40
Crossing the grassy causeway to the church, Ernest felt quite jumpy. Several times he had the feeling of being watched, and found himself looking around nervously. But there was never anyone in sight. The sky was clear again too, the clouds high and wispy. Only the scribbled trails of planes, and a few slow crows gathering. Perhaps the church was empty now too? But no.
“Hello,” said Henryk, ready at the inner door to usher him in. He must have been watching for him. Nothing much else to do. “How is tricks?”
“Fine, thank you,” Ernest replied, sensing his arrival had been a disappointment, although Henryk was hiding the fact quite well. Something else struck Ernest. You are pretending to trust me and I am pretending to trust you. “Peggy sent me. Look.”
Henryk perked up at Peggy’s name. Ernest followed him inside and began to unload his pockets, while Henryk held out his hands to catch the food before it fell, and helped arrange it all carefully on the edge of the font. He seemed to arrange his words with equal care.
“This looks jolly delicious.” He flicked a little fluff from the buttered toast sandwich, and glanced at Ernest, obviously hoping he hadn’t noticed. “I like toast very much indeed. Do you mind if I eat it now?”
“No, no, not at all.”
“Splendid.”
It was like the parties Dad used to have at the gallery in Rye, when he had a new exhibition. Everyone standing around, nibbling, looking, being polite. Perhaps the man’s hunger would make him drop his guard. Maybe Ernest could learn something from watching him eat.
“I suppose you know where you are?” said Ernest.
Henryk looked up, one hand over his mouth. He did not want to speak through a mouthful of toast. He seemed different today. More willing to talk, though the way he spoke was confusing. His accent was very strong, but each word was separate and precise. Perfectly ordinary words sounded strange from his lips.
“I am in England.”
“Yes, but don’t you need to know where?” Not that he would tell him, thought Ernest, if it wasn’t too late already.
“Not exactly. Not the co-ordinates.”
Ernest waited.
“Kent,” said Henryk. “I do know that.”
“Did Peggy tell you?”
“No. I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to. I am a pilot, remember, Ernest. I know the maps. It is …” He hesitated. “It is my job.”
Ernest thought about this business of maps, and the carefully hidden Cyclopaedia. It all suddenly seemed rather pointless. Why would you send a spy without a map?
“Do you know the name of the nearest village?” he asked.
Henryk’s jaw stopped moving. Then he chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed, and looked at the last piece of toast as if disappointed.
“No.”
Ernest had another idea.
“I found your parachute, you know.”
Henryk choked.
“What did you do? Did you tell anyone? Do you think—”
“I covered it up again, when I was coming here. I thought I’d better check … it’s all right, here, gosh, are you OK?” Ernest hammered Henryk on the back while he spluttered. “I haven’t told anyone else. But what about your uniform? Where is your uniform?”
“You want to see uniform?”
“Yes.” Of course I do, thought Ernest triumphantly. He stood with his shoulders back and head up, watching. Henryk silently walked over to the pew by the pulpit. Ernest watched while he unlatched the white wooden door, and then knelt at the bench with his back to Ernest.
Neck strained, heart beating faster, Ernest watched him reaching behind the paneling, fumbling for something. His heart began to race a little more. Be ready, he told himself. Just be ready.
Backing out again, on hands and knees, Henryk pulled out a flying suit, dragging it along the parquet with a slow, soft shuffle. Then a jacket, in petrol blue.
“Come here.”
Ernest was still wary. He could be hiding anything in there. But he went.
“Look.”
RAF wings. Silvery thread. Another embroidered badge below, with the word “Poland” in capitals, white on black. Henryk twisted the cloth so that Ernest would not have to read it upside down. Then he looked at Ernest, waiting for a response.
“Yes. I see.”
Henryk folded away the heavy garments and pushed them out of sight again. He looked so crushed that Ernest hardly had the heart to inspect or interrogate further. He was too used to humiliation himself to want to inflict any more on this man. But if you were going to disguise yourself as a Polish Airman, that, surely, would be exactly what you would wear. He would have to think of something better.
“Will you tell me about your squadron?” he asked. It was the kind of thing any boy would ask. Warming to his theme, he added, ‘“What’s your squadron leader called?”
Henryk looked a little surprised at the question.
“Yon Barnes,” he replied. “Do you know him?”
“Yon? No. Oh, you mean John. No, I don’t know him either.” This wasn’t going very well. “You’ve made a mistake.” He tried not to sound too jubilant.
“Awfully sorry, old chap. In Poland we say Yan. Sometimes I am confused.”
Clever, thought Ernest. Well-trained. And so spontaneous it was almost convincing. It gave him another idea. As casually as he could manage, he said, “How interesting. And how do you say John in German?”
Henryk narrowed his eyes and smiled uncertainly.
Again Ernest waited. He became aware of a pulse at the back of his knee. It was throbbing, faster and faster, as though it wanted him to run.
“You are testing me, perhaps, Ernest,” said Henryk steadily. “You think I will give myself away?”
Ernest hoped he wasn’t going to blush like a girl. Henryk brushed some crumbs from the font into his cupped palm, and spoke over his shoulder.
“But you see that question is easy. In German John is Johann—like Johann Sebastian Bach or Johann Strauss. You know? They are very famous composers. And you do not have to be German to know that.”
“Oh.” Ernest hadn’t known. He knew about birds, and glazes, a little, and how to throw a pot, and keep it centered. He knew how to stay out of trouble a lot of the time. But nothing at all about music. He could check later, if he could make himself remember. Strauss. Bach. He purred the second composer’s name at the back of his throat, as Henryk had done.
“Sit down, Ernest. I will try to explain.”
Man to man? Ernest took a step back.
“I’m fine. I’m fine standing.”
“Then I sit down.”
Henryk sat on the harmonium stool, his back to the instrument. Everything about him sank at once, as if gravity were pulling him down, and Ernest was reminded of their first encounter. How he had looked suddenly so old and heavy and weary, as if it were an effort simply to stand.
“If you trust your sister, you must trust me also.”
Ernest thought about that, and nodded, and Henryk waited patiently before continuing. The next thing he said was rather surprising.
“I know what you are thinking.”
“Really?” said Ernest.
His mind became tangled up in possibilities all over again. Bluff, and double bluff. Surely only a master agent could read another person’s mind … Could this wreck of a man actually control his thoughts?
Another test, then, for both of them.
“Go on then. Tell me.”
And he looked at Henryk, expectantly.
“No. Not like that. I
am not a … a reader of the mind.”
“Oh.” Ernest let out his breath.
“But I can guess. This is what you are thinking. You think I am pretending. If I am who I say I am, why am I down here and not up there?” Henryk gestured to the rafters. “And so I must be the enemy. It is jolly obvious.”
Was it?
“I tell you stories. I give you my word. But I cannot prove anything to you. All I have is who I am. It is your choice. Believe me or not. So I put my life in your hands.” Henryk’s green eyes caught Ernest’s. “You are a very brave young man. You must be, or you would not be here, now, alone with me. You do not know who I am or what I might do. But you came to find out. That is courage.”
He paused, as if he had to work out how to say the next bit. Eventually he was ready. It was a long, slow speech.
“I think about courage now. All the time. I have much hours to think. And now I think maybe it is like a bank, a little. You have money in the bank. When you need it, you get some money out and you spend it, and there is a little less in the bank. Each time. You spend it, and you spend it, and then one day you come to the bank and there is nothing left. It’s gone. You have used it all up, and that is the end of it. How did that happen? Where did it go? All gone, and you did not notice. Never mind, you think, I will get some more. But getting money is not so easy. You have to find a job and earn it. Somebody needs to give it to you, for something you have done. You cannot just make it on your own.”
“And courage?” said Ernest.
“I don’t know. That is what I think about now. Can you make it from nothing? I don’t think so. I think perhaps … I think you get courage from other people. But when they go, it gets harder and harder. And when you know you have just a little left, and just a few people, it seems to go faster and faster. Until you are like me. Ernest, I have to tell you … I have none left. Not even the courage to die when I wished it. So I am still here. Waiting to see.”
41
Ernest had counted on getting back to the farm undetected. He was sure nobody had seen him come over the fields. But when he reached the lane, he spotted a bicycle heading towards him. From the distinctive squeak one pedal kept making, he had a pretty good idea who was riding it. The squeak of doom.
