The Kingdom by the Sea

by Robert Westall

  essentialmodernclassics

  THE

  KINGDOM

  BY THE SEA

  Robert Westall

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  About The Author

  Author’s Note

  Why You’ll Love This Book by Sophie McKenzie

  Sophie McKenzie

  More than a story

  Spotlight on Robert Westall

  Novels by Robert Westall

  The Robert Westall Walk

  Lindisfarne

  Pillboxes

  Key Events in World War Two

  Want to Know More?

  Seven Stories

  Want to Read More?

  Copyright

  About The Publisher

  Chapter One

  He was an old hand at air raids now.

  As the yell of the siren climbed the sky, he came smoothly out of his dreams. Not scared. Only his stomach clamped down tight for action, as his hands found his clothes laid ready in the dark. Hauled one jumper, then another, over his pyjamas. Thrust both stockinged feet together through his trousers and into his shoes. Then bent to tie his laces thoroughly. A loose lace had tripped him once, in the race to the shelter. He remembered the smashing blow as the ground hit his chin; the painful week after, not able to eat with a bitten tongue.

  He grabbed his school raincoat off the door, pulling the door wide at the same time. All done by feel; no need to put the light on. Lights were dangerous.

  He passed Dulcie’s door, heard Mam and Dulcie muttering to each other, Dulcie sleepy and cross, Mam sharp and urgent. Then he thundered downstairs, the crack of light from the kitchen door lighting up the edge of each stair-tread. Dad was sitting in his warden’s uniform, hauling on his big black boots, his grey hair standing up vertically in a bunch, like a cock’s comb. Without looking up, Dad said, “Bloody Hitler! Four bloody nights in a row!”

  There was a strong smell of Dad’s sweaty feet, and the fag he had burning in the ashtray. That was all Harry had time to notice; he had his own job; the two objects laid ready in the chair by the door. The big roll of blankets, wrapped in a groundsheet because the shelter was damp, done up with a big leather strap of Dad’s. And Mam’s precious attachè case with the flask of hot coffee and insurance policies and other important things, and the little bottle of brandy for emergencies. He heaved the blankets on to his back, picked up the case with one hand and reached to unlock the back door with the other.

  “Mind that light,” said Dad automatically. But Harry’s hand was already reaching for the switch. He’d done it all a hundred times before.

  He slammed the door behind him, held his breath and listened. A single aircraft’s engines, far out to sea. Vroomah, vroomah, vroomah. A Jerry. But nothing to worry about yet. Two guns fired, one after another. Two brilliant points of white, lighting up a black landscape of greenhouse, sweet-pea trellises and cucumber-frames. A rolling carpet of echoes. Still out to sea. Safe, then.

  He ran down the long back garden, with his neck prickling and the blankets bouncing against his back comfortingly. As he passed the greenhouse the rabbits thumped their heels in alarm. There was a nice cold smell of dew and cabbages. Then he was in through the shelter door, shoving the damp, mould-stinking curtain aside.

  He tossed the things on to Mam’s bunk, found the tiny oil-lamp on the back girder, and lit it and watched the flame grow. Then he lit the candle under the pottery milk-cooler that kept the shelter warm. Then he undid the bundle and laid out the blankets on the right bunks and turned back to the shelter door, ready to take Dulcie from Mam. He should be hearing their footsteps any second now, the patter of Mam’s shoes and the crunch of Dad’s hobnailed boots. Dad always saw them safe in the shelter, before he went on duty. Mam would be nagging Dad - had he locked the back door against burglars? They always teased Mam about that; she must think burglars were bloody brave, burgling in the middle of air raids.

  God, Mam and Dad were taking their time tonight. What was keeping them? That Jerry was getting closer. More guns were firing now. The garden, every detail of it, the bird-bath and the concrete rabbit, flashed black, white, black, white, black. There was a whispering in the air. Gun-shrapnel falling like rain… they shouldn’t be out in that. Where were they? Where were they? Why weren’t they tumbling through the shelter door, panting and laughing to be safe?

  That Jerry was right overhead. Vroomah. Vroomah. Vroomah.

  And then the other whistling. Rising to a scream. Bombs. Harry began to count. If you were still counting at ten, the bombs had missed you.

  The last thing he remembered was saying “seven”.

  His back hurt and his neck hurt. His hands scrabbled, and scrabbled damp clay, that got under his fingernails. The smell told him he was still in the shelter, but lying on the damp floor. And a cautious, fearful voice, with a slight tremble in it, was calling out:

  “Is anybody down there?”

  Somebody pushed the curtain across the shelter door aside, and shone a torch on him. The person was wearing a warden’s helmet, the white ‘W’ glimmering in the light of the torch. He thought at first it might be Dad. But it wasn’t Dad. It had a big black moustache; it was a total stranger.

  The stranger said, to somebody else behind him, “There’s only one of them. A kid.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said the somebody else. “Ask him where the rest are. There should be four in this shelter.”

  “Where’s the rest, son? Where’s your mam and dad?”

  “In the… I don’t know.”

  “D’you mean, still in the house, son?”

  The voice behind muttered, “Christ, I hate this job.” Then it said, with a sharp squeak of fear, “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “Something soft under me foot. Shine your light.”

  ‘“Sonly a rabbit. A dead rabbit.”

  “Thank God. Hey, son, can you hear me? Can you get up? Are you hurt?”

  Why didn’t the man come down and help him? What was he so frightened of?

  Harry got up slowly. He hurt nearly all over, but not so badly that he couldn’t move. The man gave him a hand and pulled him up out of the shelter. Harry peered up the garden. He could see quite well because the sky to the west was glowing pink.

  There was no greenhouse left.

  There was no house left. The houses to each side were still standing, though their windows had gone, and their slates were off.

  “Where’s our house?”

  There was a silence. Then the man with the moustache said, “What’s yer name, son?” Harry told him.

  “And what was yer dad’s name? And yer mam’s?” He wrote it all down in a notebook, like the police did, when they caught you scrumping apples.

  He gave them Dulcie’s name too. He tried to be helpful. Then he said, “Where are they?” and began to run up the garden path.

  The man grabbed him, quick and rough.

  “You can’t go up there, son. There’s a gas leak. A bad gas leak. Pipe’s fractured. It’s dangerous. It’s against the law to go up there.”

  “But my mam and dad’re up
there…”

  “Nobody up there now, son. Come down to the Rest Centre. They’ll tell you all about it at the Rest Centre.”

  Harry just let himself be led off across some more gardens. It was easy, because all the fences were blown flat. They went up the path of number five. The white faces of the Humphreys, who lived at number five, peered palely from the door of their shelter. They let him pass, without saying anything to him.

  In the road, the wardens who were leading him met two other wardens.

  “Any luck at number nine?”

  “Just this lad…”

  There was a long, long silence. Then one of the other wardens said, “We found the family from number seven. They were in the garden. The bomb caught them as they were running for the shelter…”

  “They all right?”

  “Broken arms and legs, I think. But they’ll live. Got them away in the ambulance.”

  Harry frowned. The Simpsons lived at number seven. There was some fact he should be able to remember about the Simpsons. But he couldn’t. It was all… mixed up.

  “Come on, son. Rest Centre for you. Can you walk that far?”

  Harry walked. He felt like screaming at them. Only that wouldn’t be a very British thing to do. But something kept building up inside him; like the pressure in his model steam-engine.

  Where was his steam-engine?

  Where was Mam, who could cuddle him and make everything all right?

  Where was Dad in his warden’s uniform, who would sort everything out?

  Next second, he had broken from their hands, and was running up another garden path like a terrified rabbit. He went through another gate, over the top of another air-raid shelter, through a hedge that scratched him horribly… on, and on, and on.

  He heard their voices calling him as he crouched in hiding. They seemed to call a long time. Then one of them said, “That wasn’t very clever.”

  “It’s the shock. Shock takes them funny ways. You can never tell how shock’s going to take them.”

  “Hope he’s not seriously hurt, poor little bleeder.”

  ‘Kid that can run like that…?”

  And then their voices went away, leaving him alone.

  So he came to his house, slowly, up his garden.

  He found his three rabbits; they were all dead, though there wasn’t a mark on them. Where the greenhouse had been was a tangle of wrecked tomato plants, that bled green, and gave off an overpowering smell of tomato.

  The house was just a pile of bricks. Not a very high pile, because everything had fallen down into the old cellar.

  There was a smell of gas; but the gas was burning. Seeping up through the bricks and burning in little blue points of flame, all in the cracks between the bricks. It looked like a burning slag-heap, and he knew why the wardens had given up hope and gone away.

  He knew he must go away too. Before anybody else found him, began to ask him questions, and do things to him. Because he felt like a bomb himself, and if anyone did anything to him, he would explode into a million pieces and nobody would ever be able to put him back together again.

  Especially, he mustn’t be given to Cousin Elsie. Cousin Elsie, who would clutch his head to her enormous bosom, and sob and call him “poor bairn” and tell everybody who came all about it, over and over and over again. He’d seen her do that when Cousin Tommy died of diphtheria. Cousin Elsie was more awful than death itself.

  No, he would go away. Where nobody knew him. Where nobody would make a fuss. Just quietly go away.

  Having made his mind up, he felt able to keep moving. There were useful things to do. The blankets in the shelter to bundle up and take with him. The attachè case. All proper, as Mam and Dad would have wanted it.

  It seemed to take him a long time to get the blankets bundled up exactly right and as he wanted them.

  In the faint light before dawn, he even managed to find Dad’s spade and bury his three rabbits. They had been his friends; he didn’t want anybody finding them and making a meal of them. He even found some wooden seed markers, and wrote the rabbits’ names on them, and stuck them in for tombstones.

  Then he went, cutting across the long stretch of gardens and out into Brimble Road, where hardly anybody knew him.

  He looked dirty, tear-stained, and exactly like a refugee. His face was so still and empty, nobody, even Cousin Elsie, would have recognised him.

  He felt… he felt like a bird flying very high, far from the world and getting further away all the time. Like those gulls who soar on summer thermals and then find they cannot get down to earth again, but must wait till the sun sets, and the land cools, and the terrible strength of the upward thermal releases them to land exhausted. Only he could not imagine ever coming to earth again, ever. Back to where everything was just as it always had been, and you did things without thinking about them.

  He supposed he would just walk till he died. It seemed the most sensible thing to do.

  Chapter Two

  He must have wandered round the town all day, in circles. Every so often, he would come to himself, and realise he was in Rudyerd Street, or Nile Street.

  But what did Rudyerd Street mean? What did Nile Street mean? Sometimes he thought he would go home, and Dulcie would be swinging on the front gate, shouting rude things at the big boys as they passed, but running to the safety of Mam’s kitchen if they made a move to attack her. And Mam would be doing the ironing, or putting the stew in the oven.

  But the moment he turned his steps towards home, the truth came back to him; the burning pile of bricks. And he would turn his steps away again.

  The last time he came to himself, he was somewhere quite different.

  On the beach. The little beach inside the harbour mouth, that didn’t have to be fenced off with barbed wire because it was under the direct protection of the Castle guns.

  He suddenly felt very tired and sat down with a thump on the sand, with his back against a black tarry boat. He closed his eyes and laid back his head; the warmth of the sun smoothed out his face, like Mam had often done with her hands. He smelt the tar of the boat and it was a nice smell; it was the first thing he’d smelt since the burning gas, and it was a comforting smell. The sun warmed his hands as they lay on the sand, and his knees under his trousers, and in a very tiny world, it was nice, nice, nice. It felt as if somebody cared about him, and was looking after him.

  On the edge of sleep, he said, “Mam?” questioningly. And then he was asleep.

  He dreamed it was just a usual day at home, with Dulcie nagging on, and Mam baking, and Dad coming in from work and taking his boots off with a satisfied sigh. He dreamed he shouted at them,” There you all are! Where have you been?”

  And they all laughed at him, and said, “Hiding, silly!” And it was all right.

  The all-rightness stayed with him when he woke; a feeling they were not far away. He lay relaxed; as he remembered lying relaxed in his pram when he was little and watching the leaves of trees blowing, whispering and sunlit overhead. As long as he didn’t move he knew the bubble of happiness would not break. But if he moved, he knew they would go away and leave him again.

  So he lay on, dreamily. The sun still shone, though it was setting, and the shadows of the cliff were creeping out towards him. And that he knew was bad. When the shadow reached him the sun would be gone, the world would turn grey, a cold breeze would blow.

  And it would be time to go home. Like the three girl bathers who were walking up the beach towards him, chattering and laughing and feebly hitting each other with wet towels. They had a home; he had no home. There was a sort of glass wall between people who had a home and people who hadn’t.

  He watched them pass and get into a little black car that was waiting to pick them up. He thought, with a twinge of resentment, that some people could still get petrol for cars even in wartime. Black market. It would serve them right if the police caught them.

  Then the car moved off with a puff of blue smoke, and he felt even more
lonely. The shadow of the cliff grew nearer. And nearer.

  “Please help,” he said to the soft warm air, and the dimming blue sky. “Don’t leave me.” He felt the approach of another night alone as if it was a monster.

  The shadow of the cliff was only a yard away now. He reached out his arm and put his hand into it; it felt cold, like putting your hand in water, icy water.

  And yet still he hoped, as the shadow crept up his arm.

  He closed his eyes and felt the shadow creeping, like the liquid in a thermometer. Only it wasn’t recording heat, it was recording cold.

  And then he heard an explosive snort, just in front of him. Sat upright, startled, and opened his eyes.

  It was a dog. A dog sitting watching him. A dog who had been in the sea, because its black fur was all spikes. A dog who had been rolling in the sand, because the spikes were all sandy. The dog watched him with what seemed to be very kind eyes. But then most dogs had kind eyes.

  The dog held its paw up to him, and hesitantly he took it. The dog woofed twice, softly, approvingly, then took its paw back.

  Was this his miracle? He looked round swiftly, for an owner, before he let himself hope.

  There was no one else on the beach, just him and the dog.

  But lots of dogs came down to the beach on their own and made friends with anybody, for an afternoon. And there was a medal on the dog’s collar.

  Not breathing, not daring to hope, he pulled the dog to him by the collar, and read the medal.

  The dog was called Don, and lived at 12 Aldergrove Terrace.

  Harry shut his eyes, and he couldn’t even have told himself whether he closed them in gladness or horror.

  Aldergrove Terrace had been a very posh and very short terrace. Three weeks ago, Aldergrove Terrace had been hit by a full stick of German bombs. Anybody in Aldergrove who was still alive was in hospital… permanently.

  He opened his eyes, and looked at his fellow survivor. The dog was a sort of small, short-legged Alsatian. It looked quite fit, but rather thin and uncared-for. It certainly hadn’t been combed in a long time, and people had combed their dogs in Aldergrove every day. It had been that sort of place.