Sunset Over Soho (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Small boats were already picking up soldiers from smashed piers and broken quays, from the beaches and out of the sea. Some of the men had waded towards the boats. Harben could see long lines of them, orderly and quiet, in the water.

  He picked out a likely stretch of the shore and cut out his engine. An officer was marshalling men. There seemed to be no disorder, although the noise of the guns and the planes was now unceasing.

  Harben loaded up and backed out cautiously, then turned and made for a destroyer. He made ten trips before dark.

  Bombs made the sea like a storm. Twice he thought that the tub would lift her engine out of its bed, but everything settled again. The night came on, but the work did not diminish. The sea had been black with craft, many of which were now invisible, but a lurid light from the burning town lit up large areas of water. Planes flew over the beaches and bombs dropped every few minutes, but most of the men were in sandholes, and the target, after dark, was unsatisfactory, although the enemy sent up flares, and the bombs began falling again on the whitened landscape.

  All night the work went on. As they lay off after taking on or disembarking troops, Harben and Sister Mary Dominic could hear the splash of oars and the low-toned voices of sailors. It was one of the most eerie experiences of Harben’s life—this hearing of quiet, civilized, decent voices and with them the sounds of summer, the plash and the creaking of oars, and after them the crashing guns, and the screaming and whining of the bombs, and then the silence again.

  “It is like Christ walking on the water,” said Sister Mary Dominic in his ear. “After all the tumult, so calm, so good.”

  The voices faded; the sound of the oars passed into the sound of the light waves washing on the shore. There was no drag of shingle to give a harsh reality to the sea. It was halcyon sea, a children’s sea, the more so in contrast with all the horror of the day.

  By dawn it was time to get away. Harben needed more petrol, and Sister Mary Dominic needed more medical supplies. They returned to the beach once more and brought off ten men and their officer. The sky began to grow grey.

  “Come along, sir,” said Harben. The officer glanced back uncertainly, but all his party was aboard, and so he followed. The tub backed off again, turned, and tore off towards a destroyer. Her commander told them that he had orders to be off, as the harbour would be hell as soon as the sun was up.

  “Right,” said Harben; and made for the beach once more. An officer, limping, asked him whether he could take any wounded aboard.

  “Only if they can sit up,” was Harben’s reply.

  “It’s only one fellow; a lieutenant. We’ll bring him,” said the officer. A plane flew over directly he had left them, coughed out bullets on to the loose, coarse sand, and dropped a couple of bombs in the shallow sea. The tub gave a hiccough and rocked, but she was not grounded, and, having registered a protest by breaking most of the crockery which had not, so far, been broken, she settled down again.

  A sergeant embarked a dozen men, and then they all waited. At last the officer reappeared with three more, one of whom the others were carrying on a four-handed seat. They all made heavy going over the sand, but gained the edge at last. It was difficult to get the wounded lieutenant into the boat. Harben waded ashore and lent a hand.

  They got back to Dover for breakfast—a rather late breakfast. They rested, refuelled, reprovisioned, and set out again at seven o’clock in the evening by the route which they had used both going out and returning. It was the shortest route of the three which were recommended—just thirty-nine sea miles—and took them almost to Calais before the tub turned at an angle of an hundred and thirty degrees to slant north-east along the sandy coast between the Mardick and Snouw Banks, where it converged upon the longer, fifty-five-mile route from the North Goodwin lightship. This track crossed the Outer Ruytingen and then slanted south past La Dyck. Off Snouw Bank and Brack Bank were the Dunkirk Roads.

  Their first trip had been on a Sunday. The troopships had set out during the afternoon. On this next day, Monday, the bombing from German aeroplanes was worse. British fighters were outnumbered fifty to one as they strove to protect the crowded sea and the equally crowded port and its blackened beaches. Harben worked dry-mouthed and with pricking skin, but Sister Mary Dominic seemed without fear. The seas were heavier than on the previous day. Some naval ratings told Harben that the Atlantic weather was stormy. Earlier he had been told that Calais had fallen. The news of the weather seemed a good deal more serious to him.

  Fortunately, the worst of the weather passed northwards, but there came an ugly swell which swamped the small boats on the beaches, and made it extremely difficult to get men off from the shore. Harben rigged up a tow line, and took off ships’ boats full of soldiers, but he heard that up at the docks and in the harbour matters were going badly. He himself made less than half the number of trips he had made on the previous night, and the tub did everything but founder, and rolled and complained as she hogged to the beaches and back.

  They were off at dawn again, whilst the aeroplanes moaned overhead and flares went up, and the burning town smouldered red, and the men on the beaches coughed out the acrid smoke. The German guns kept up an incessant shelling, and streams of tracer bullets picked out the British planes. The bombing was not quite so bad now, for appalling clouds of smoke from the burning town hid everything else from view.

  The threatened stormy weather had passed over, but next day they saw a ship sunk by collision in the Dunkirk Roads, and had to take off survivors. They transported these to a vessel hove-to nearby, and then got on with the beachwork. It was automatic now, and Harben, with next day’s dawn, was preparing to get back to Dover when a bomb fell very close and the repercussion lifted the engine of the tub and smashed the compass.

  Harben had been putting in to the beach to take off his last load. Except for himself and the nun, the tub was empty. He scrambled up from where he had flung himself across her, and switched off the useless and possibly dangerous engine. He asked her whether she was hurt, and held her against him, as people hold children who have suffered a bad fall or shock.

  “No,” she answered; but her face was very white and she breathed fast and short, and held his sleeve tightly, unconscious that she did so.

  “You get below,” said Harben. “I’ll come as soon as I can. Lie down on one of the bunks.”

  “No, I shall manage,” she said.

  “You’ll do as you’re told,” said he, and kissed her.

  “Yes,” she said, with sudden, meek, and, to him, surprising obedience. He did not dare to leave the wheel to go and look after her. It was not yet light, and suddenly, over the side, a voice called:

  “Boat, ahoy!”

  “Where are you?” cried Harben, leaning over.

  “Here!”

  “I’m not under control. You’ll have to find me,” called Harben. He took out an electric torch and shone it on the water. Almost immediately there was the drone of a plane overhead.

  “Cut it out, mate! The B’s have spotted you!” called the voice.

  “Come on, then,” said Harben. The drone of the plane grew fainter. He shone the torch again, and a hand came up from the sea and clutched the gunwale. It was difficult to get the man aboard. It was a sailor.

  “Any more of you!” asked Harben.

  “Should be, mate. They caught us a proper lick. Cut away half the bows, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “All right. I’ll hang about, as long as I don’t drift too far in. Can’t see to do a decent job, anyway, until it gets light.”

  He kept his eyes on the water, and strained his ears. No more men approached him, but when it grew lighter he saw them, six or seven, although it was hard to tell in that faint light, which were heads and which the wreckage with which the sea was strewn. The tub had drifted dangerously near the shore. Harben lowered his fisherman’s anchor, and then, with the help of the sailor, set the auxiliary sails he always carried.

  “How long you been on thi
s game, sir?” asked the sailor, looking at Harben’s face and stubble of beard.

  “All the time since the beginning,” Harben answered. “But I’m dished this time, I’m afraid. If I run this tub on to the beach I’ll never get her off this side of Christmas, and we’re shockingly near shoal water. Take the wheel, while I see to the damage.”

  The engine had been lifted out of its bed, and, with it, the forward planking of the cockpit. Sister Mary Dominic got up.

  “The men must come in and rest,” she said. “I am better.”

  “No wounded this time,” said Harben; but she would not stay in the cabin.

  There was a heavy surf on the beach that morning, and although the long length of anchor chain which Harben had thought best to let out on a sandy bottom had held the tub well whilst the work of setting the sails was going forward, unfortunately the wind continued to blow towards the shore. Harben raised anchor, and tacked as well as he could, but the tub’s ungainly superstructure acted as a trap for the wind, and she was gradually driven back towards the beach. A ship’s boat, coming alongside, asked if he were in trouble, and offered to come back, as soon as it had unloaded, to take off his people. But the tide was on the turn, and they drifted off-shore again, and gained the thick of the smoke at the harbour entrance.

  Harben manoeuvred his craft half-way to Dover. Then a naval cutter gave him a tow.

  “And was the Sister hurt badly, ma’am?” asked Pirberry.

  “She was bruised all over, as I found when he got her home,” said Mrs. Bradley. “No bones were broken. It took the tow fifteen hours to get back to Dover. It must have been a terrible time. Provisions and water were short, but everyone on board seemed content, and nobody grumbled. The sailors took it in turns to sleep in the cabin.”

  “And why, ma’am, have you told me this tale?” asked Pirberry.

  “Because,” said Mrs. Bradley, “I wanted to paint the picture of a man who is not a poisoner. You now know as much about the affair as I do myself, and from this point we set our wits to work to discover who caused the old man’s death—or, rather, to prove our suspicions.”

  “I quite see you don’t think Mr. Harben’s weapon would be poison, however much he might want a man out of the way. And you mean that Mr. Harben wasn’t all that dead set on the green-eyed young lady, after all, or he wouldn’t have fallen quite so hard for the nun. And you mean the old fellow might easily have had it coming to him from the Spaniards, especially if they are the young lady’s brothers. There’s plenty in what you suggest, ma’am, but I think Mr. Harben’s got a lot of explaining to do.”

  BOOK SEVEN

  This Side of Heaven

  And when all bodies meet

  In Lethe to be drowned,

  Then only numbers sweet

  With endless life are crowned.

  Herrick

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Spaniards

  This explaining Harben was soon called upon to do. The Spanish captain and The Louse having come out of hospital, Pirberry found no difficulty in rounding them up, and he brought in with them the other members of their crew, the sinister mate Don Juan, a deck-hand called Estéban and the ship’s cook, a fat and genial-looking fellow known as Jorge.

  The Spaniards had been vouched for by their Consulate, and it was in the full odour of sanctity, as Mrs. Bradley put it, that they made their appearance in Pirberry’s office.

  “Ah, Mr. Harben!” said the Spanish captain. “How is your honour? We meet at a good time. You must tell your policemen, please, not to put us in prison, as we are under the protection of our Embassy, are distressed seamen, and are known at the Consulate as good and reasonable men.”

  “That’s all right,” said Harben.

  “Yes,” said the captain in Spanish, “but look here! What do they want us for?”

  “They want to know why you are here,” replied Harben. The captain shrugged, and Don Juan responded angrily:

  “We have been attacked. That is why we are here.”

  “U-boats?” asked Pirberry, through the interpreter.

  “No, no. Surface raiders.”

  “They say,” said the interpreter, “that their ship has been attacked by surface raiders.”

  “Where?” demanded Pirberry.

  “In Spanish waters. Off Corũna.”

  “Why are they in England? Shouldn’t they have put in to Spain?”

  “They were rescued by a British ship, they say. It put in at a South Coast port.”

  “We shall have to get that story verified,” said Pirberry. “Of course, they’re neutrals, and all that, but it sounds a bit fishy to me. Ask them what a British ship was doing in Spanish waters.”

  The interpreter did so, and replied:

  “They say the British ship was bringing back people from Lisbon. Refugees from France, the Riviera, and Switzerland.”

  “That sounds a bit more likely. All right. When we’ve done with them over this business, I suppose we can get them back to Gibraltar somehow, and they’ll have to make their own way home from there, if the Gib authorities will let them.”

  The Spaniards were then closely questioned about the attacks made on them in Soho. They professed complete ignorance of the reason for the attacks, and protested that they had been made on Mr. Harben. Harben concurred in this view, but declared that he could offer no explanation.

  “You were subject to other attacks, sir, I believe, at the very beginning of the war,” said Pirberry, when the Spaniards, after an exchange of compliments between themselves and the police, had been allowed to return to their lodgings. Harben glanced reproachfully at Mrs. Bradley. “And to what do you attribute these favours, sir?” continued Pirberry, with an irony which startled his hearers.

  “Attribute … I haven’t the slightest idea why I should be set upon.”

  “Are you certain of that, sir?”

  “Of course I am. I can’t help it if there are criminal lunatics about.”

  “I see, sir. Well, that’s that, then.” And Pirberry nodded to the policeman near the door to show him out. When he was gone, Pirberry turned to Mrs. Bradley.

  “Something very fishy there, ma’am, I don’t care what you say.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Bradley. “One must be tolerant and reasonably imaginative, don’t you think? After all …”

  “After all, he may still think he’s shielding the young lady. Yes, I allow for that, ma’am. He may have come to some agreement with these Spaniards.”

  When she had left New Scotland Yard, Mrs. Bradley telephoned Harben, who had found refuge at the flat of a friend in Soho Square.

  “The police are very much interested in your Spanish friends,” she said. “They are not quite clear yet how they come to be in England, and they are chary of accepting their story. Can they be telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Harben. “But I’ll tell you what I can do. I’ll take them out for a pub-crawl, and see what I can get out of them, if you like.”

  “I really cannot advise it,” she replied. She heard the full story later. The Spaniards, despite all war-time restrictions and the black-out, spent a most festive evening, followed, everywhere they went, by the police. This precautionary measure was the result of collusion between Pirberry and Mrs. Bradley, although their motives were quite dissimilar.

  When the party could obtain no more drinks, it occurred to Harben (by this time considerably fuddled) to take his party to sleep at the house by the river. He led them down the steps of the Piccadilly Tube, bought tickets, took the owlish El Piojo by the arm, and led him to the escalator. El Piojo, who was country bred, drew back, but the others, their grave Spanish faces never changing, thrust him on, and, a stout gentleman in a bowler hat and carrying a gasmask acting as buffer, he arrived safely at the bottom. Having discovered that the escalator did him no harm, he leapt on to the second one with a shout of “La montaña! La montaña!” Then he proceeded to tear headlong down, taking off his cap
to the patient English who he inconvenienced as he burst excitedly past them.

  “He has Negro blood,” said the Spanish captain, negligently, to Harben. “And he is, of course, a madman.”

  Harben retained, even in his cups, an English sense of responsibility. He dashed after El Piojo, and discovered him at the bottom of the escalator weeping, and pointing to the passage through which they had to pass to get to the trains.

  “It is hell,” said he, “is it not? Why have you brought me here, my friend?”

  “It is not hell. It is the train,” said Harben, taking his arm and leading him into the tunnel. “But if you want to see hell, you shall. I will take you to it tonight.”

  They got El Piojo on to the train, which, at that time of night, was almost empty, and he fell asleep immediately he sat down. Don Juan, who was seated next to him, leaned across and touched Harben’s knee.

  “I trust you entirely,” said he, “but where do you take us?”

  “To the house by the river,” said Harben.

  “And we shall sleep there?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I thank you, sir. I am satisfied that you are a man of honour,” said the mate.

  “I thank you, too,” replied Harben, closing his eyes. “You are, without doubt, the most honest man in Seville.”

  “I have never been in Seville, sir.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir. I should have said … ?”

  “You should have said Andalusia, sir. It is wider,” said Don Juan, demonstrating.

  “Many thanks for your valuable correction, sir.”

  They all slept. A kindly stranger turned them out at Hammersmith, the station at which they had to change.

  Harben, dry-mouthed and feeling slightly sick, began to wonder, as they waited in the dark for a District train, whether his idea had really been such a good one after all. However, he could scarcely desert the Spaniards now. They crowded on to a train, got out at Chiswick Park, and walked the rest of the way.