Dover Beach

by Leslie Thomas

  At the other side of the building there was a shout as the rescuers unearthed a different way in. She hurried there. They brought out a wounded woman, still in her canteen uniform, ragged and soiled. There was plenty of help. Anxious men were standing around waiting for victims. An ambulance crew took the woman away and another crew carried two more laden stretchers. The second was a policeman, barely recognisable, but conscious. She said: ‘Do you know where Frank Cotton is?’

  The man’s eyes seemed amazed as if she had intruded on his nightmare. He shook his head. She was aware of all the people around her, now digging frantically, burrowing in to the rubble, panting, calling. ‘Frank Cotton,’ she kept asking. ‘Anyone seen Sergeant Cotton?’

  No one was paying attention. She resisted the strong temptation to shout. She hardly recognised anyone. Another stretcher would be carried away and she would hurry to see who it was. The ambulance crews came back from the hospital. No, they had not seen him in casualty. There were at least a dozen dead.

  Nancy stood solitary in the sun. ‘Oh, Frank,’ she kept saying to herself. ‘Frank.’ She had always been so professionally capable but now she almost panicked with her indecision. She kept circling the rubble, no one stopping her in her nurse’s uniform. The usual spectators were gathering and barriers were being erected. She felt she ought to try to help, but it all seemed as if it were nothing to do with her. She thought she was going to break down.

  Then she saw a woman from the police station coming towards her, a woman she knew although she could not remember her name. She worked on the switchboard. ‘I’d only just gone off duty,’ she said. She was holding a steel police helmet. ‘Is this your husband’s?’

  Nancy felt her fingers tremble as she reached out. Slowly she turned it over and saw ‘Sgt. F. Cotton’ on the inside rim. She folded herself over it, sobbing, trying to stop herself. ‘Alf is going up your way,’ said the woman. ‘He’ll give you a lift home. It’s no good you waiting around here. It could be hours.’

  An elderly man she did not know came from a few yards away and said: ‘It’s only a sidecar. But it’s not far, is it.’

  She hardly knew what she was about. There was no sense to it. She allowed herself to be led away from the destroyed building and, in her awkward uniform, helped into the sidecar. ‘You might get some news if you go home,’ said the woman closing the little door for her.

  Nancy stared ahead. She had a feeling that she ought to be getting back to the hospital but then, inconsequently, she thought she ought to have a bath before she did. Perhaps someone would telephone at home. Alf started the spluttering motorcycle and set off with a jerk that threw her head back. There was no top on the sidecar and she felt the wind blowing at her. Lowering her head into her hands she wept. Alf stopped outside their house and she said to him: ‘I don’t know what I’m about.’

  ‘A nice cup of tea will help,’ said Alf. He guided her to the door but then, as if he wanted to leave her quickly, turned and got back aboard the motorbike. It roared in a cloud of smoke down the hill towards Dover. Trembling Nancy stood outside the door. Her hand was unsteady as she put her key in the lock and turned it. But the door was already unlocked. She walked stiffly into the house.

  Her husband, covered in brown dirt, was sitting at the table and lifted his head as she came through the door.

  ‘I swapped my tin hat with Bert Wallace,’ said Frank. ‘Weeks ago. Mine was too big and his was too small.’

  Nancy held on to him and he put a gritty arm around her. He had walked out of the police station twenty seconds before the bomb had struck it. ‘I woke up across the road,’ he said. ‘I came back here. I don’t know why exactly. I got a lift.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Nancy. ‘It’s where we belong, I suppose. Those poor people.’

  ‘Poor everybody,’ he said. ‘God knows how many. I’ll have to go back down there soon.’

  ‘And I’ll have to go back to the hospital. You should come in, Frank, and see the doctor.’

  Cotton said: ‘I feel all right. Just shattered. I’ll have a bath.’

  ‘That’s what I was going to do but I won’t have time. I’ll run it for you. Then I ought to go.’

  ‘How? I’d better get the car out.’

  He went out of the cottage and took the small car from its shed. A sullen cloud of smoke was hanging above the town. Nancy came from the house. She had changed into a clean uniform. She got into the car and they drove silently down the hill into Dover. There were diversions around what had been the police station but they could see it from the end of the street, smoke rising from the rubble, vehicles and rescuers filling the scene. Still without saying anything Cotton followed the diversion signs and drove around the side streets. Some girls were playing hopscotch on the pavement, women were talking in the doorways, an old man walked his dog.

  ‘Life goes on,’ said Nancy.

  ‘It’s supposed to,’ Cotton replied.

  They kissed each other outside the hospital. An ambulance was following them up the slope. ‘Take care,’ she said as she got out of the car. ‘I’ll get home when I can.’ She paused. ‘I didn’t leave the bath running, did I?’

  He smiled. ‘I hope not. We’ll never get any help today.’ He drove off, waving as he did so, then skirting the destroyed police station again and going up the hill. He put the car in its shed and went into the house. The telephone was ringing. He unhooked it from the wall and said: ‘Frank Cotton.’

  ‘Good,’ said the man. ‘Glad I’ve got you. Brian Morris, CID Folkestone, here. We’ve temporarily taken over your business. There’s not much of your new station left, I gather.’

  ‘It’s a mound of rubble. We’ve had some deaths.’

  ‘I heard. Sorry about that. And I’m sorry to bother you now, but on top of all this – you’ve got a murder.’

  A detective sergeant from Folkestone was at the scene. ‘My day off,’ he grumbled to Cotton. ‘They got me out of bed.’ He held out a heavy hand: ‘Don Breck.’ Despite the closeness of the afternoon he was wearing a trench coat and a trilby hat. ‘I hear you’ve had a bit of trouble today, at the nick.’

  ‘A bit,’ answered Cotton. He knew the man slightly and did not like him. ‘It got a direct hit from a bomb. They’re still digging people out.’

  ‘Sounds nasty.’

  ‘It is. Who’s been murdered?’

  ‘Some girl.’ Breck pointed down the hill to the row of damaged and unoccupied houses. ‘Found in one of these. We only got the guff a couple of hours ago. They switched it from Dover. Want to take a look?’

  They walked down the damaged and weedy street. There was a uniformed policeman sitting on half a wall. He stood when he saw them. ‘She’s inside,’ he said. ‘Upstairs. ’Orrible.’

  Breck stood aside and indicated that Cotton should go ahead of him. ‘Your patch,’ he said. He stood back a pace. ‘Don’t look too safe to me, this place.’

  ‘I wouldn’t touch anything, like the walls,’ said the police constable bringing up the rear. ‘Don’t bang your head or you could bring the whole house down, the whole street.’

  ‘Got a torch?’ Cotton asked him. The man handed it forward and Cotton went up the stairs into the dim room. There were crevices through which the afternoon sunbeams crept. She was lying white and naked on the bed with string tight around her neck. Her eyes were open and glassy. Her body was slightly to the left, her breasts were leaning that way and one hand was over her pubis. She looked stiff and cold. ‘Christ,’ said Cotton. ‘You’d think there’s been enough people dead for one day.’

  ‘They’re sending an ambulance, sergeant,’ said the constable. ‘But they’re a bit on the busy side. I’m from Deal but I had some good mates at your station. Fishing and that.’

  Cotton looked around but there was not much else to see. Her usherette’s uniform was neatly folded on the chair at the bedside. ‘Looks like she worked in one of the cinemas,’ said Cotton. He went through the clothes. Her knickers were missing. Every t
ime he paid attention to anything Breck followed suit.

  ‘Only young,’ the Folkestone man said with a hint of appreciation. ‘No drawers. On the game, probably. Uniforms and that.’

  ‘She might be . . . have been,’ said Cotton. ‘Part-time. This room looks as though it’s been regularly used. There’s a towel and some soap and some Player’s Weights.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t come in here to smoke,’ said Breck.

  Cotton wished he would shut up. He edged around the bed. ‘I don’t recognise her,’ he said.

  Breck nodded. ‘You get to know the tarts. And the bookies.’

  They heard a vehicle outside and the toot of a horn. ‘Ambulance,’ said the constable.

  ‘Tell him to pack up doing that,’ said Breck. ‘He’ll bring the flamin’ roof down on our heads.’

  The man went out. Another vehicle sounded. ‘The bloke to take the pictures,’ called the officer who had gone to the ambulance.

  ‘Send him in,’ said Cotton.

  ‘Carefully,’ added Breck.

  Cotton was still looking around. The other detective said: ‘No need for me to be here now, is there. Like I said, it was my day off. I’m going to the pictures tonight. Abbott and Costello, my favourites.’

  ‘No, you go ahead,’ said Cotton relieved. ‘Thanks. We were caught a bit on the hop.’ Breck bent almost double to get out. The other men were talking cheerfully outside. Cotton sat on the end of the bed and looked at her dead, exposed young body. ‘What a bloody world,’ he said to himself.

  Eight people, including Sergeant Wallace, had died in the bombing of the police station and ten more were injured. The dead included an old man who had been arrested for collecting illegal bets and was waiting to be charged.

  Cotton sat at a teacher’s desk in the school which had been taken over as the police station. The only telephone was in a room down the corridor and a constable had been stationed there to answer it. Now the man poked his head around the classroom door. ‘They’ve picked up a bloke on the murder, sarge,’ he said. ‘Asking after her at the Hippodrome. They’re bringing him over. Navy, apparently.’ He read from a slip of paper. ‘Lieutenant Commander Paul Instow.’

  Cotton sighed and said: ‘Right.’ They had already arrested a soldier.

  A woman brought him a cup of tea. ‘Not the facilities here,’ she said. ‘Not like that new kitchen at the police station.’ She began to sniffle. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over, the funerals and the like.’

  ‘We’ve got to bear up,’ he said inadequately. He thanked her and put the tea on the desk. The blackboard was covered with chalked swear-words. It irritated him. He picked up a duster and cleaned it. Some shapes were beyond the glass panes of the door and he turned to greet the new arrival.

  ‘Sorry about this, lieutenant commander,’ he said. ‘But they had to bring you in. You’re not under any suspicion. We already have a confession.’

  They shook hands. ‘Who was it?’ sighed Instow. ‘She didn’t deserve that. Poor Molly.’

  Cotton went to the desk and turned over some papers. ‘A soldier. Went absent without leave and when they picked him up he blurted it all out.’

  ‘What a bastard,’ breathed Instow. ‘She was only a girl, a nice girl. Decent in a special way.’

  Cotton regarded him. He picked up a card from the pile of papers. ‘Did you give her this?’

  Instow reached out and touched it but did not take it. ‘I did. It was her birthday and I gave it to her last week. At the Hippodrome.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘Why did he do it, this soldier?’ He looked up.

  ‘All the usual reasons,’ said Cotton. ‘Lost his head, he says.’

  ‘Lost his head,’ repeated Instow. ‘And she lost her life.’ He said again: ‘Bastard.’

  Cotton began: ‘Was she regularly . . .?’

  ‘On the game? I suppose I can’t deny it but it was just now and then. She was saving up for her future, she said. She had that room in the bombed house and I went there with her. I know I’m old enough to be her father and there’s no excuse. She was good company and she wasn’t . . . well, hard. I should be ashamed of myself. It just happened.’

  Cotton regarded the naval officer. They were about the same age. ‘Things do happen,’ he said. ‘More often than not these days.’

  By the end of September the Channel weather began to fret and the British wondered what had gone wrong: day by day, night after night, they still watched and waited but there was no sign of invading Germans.

  The sea had a blank expression, the land was untroubled; defence works, trenches, pillboxes, roadblocks had become part of the scenery. There was only so much training an army could do, only so many exercises, only so many obstacles to be dug. The football games and cricket matches, the dances, and the gathering of a harvest provided occupation but there were no battles on the ground. Some people in the south began to feel a sense that was almost disappointment like a cast of characters, over-rehearsed, but with no sign of the curtain going up.

  There was still activity in the air but now the bombers were flying high, so high their black crosses could not be distinguished, all heading for London and other places inland. In Dover there was still shelling but the diminished population, by instinct now, rarely strayed far from cover. There was usually a handy hole in the ground.

  Military men began to eye the low horizon of France with speculation. If the enemy was disinclined to attack, why not attack the enemy? Churchill called for a new task force to strike at the kernel of Nazi Europe.

  The reality was less dramatic. Even in the early summer of 1940 there had been attempts, verging on the amateur, to mount raids on the occupied coast which achieved nothing. The only casualty of one misadventure was to the officer commanding, who was wounded in the ear lobe. A raid on the Channel Islands was carried out from a submarine; a collapsible boat, purchased privately in Oxford Street, London, was assembled during the undersea voyage but was then found to be too large to unload through the conning tower. It had to be sawn in pieces and reassembled before entering the water. During this misbegotten muddle troops landed on the wrong island due to a navigation fault and one officer became wedged on a cliff and had to be rescued by the enemy. The tragic debacle of the raid on Dieppe with poor planning and unsuitable tanks, which resulted in mass casualties for the Canadian soldiers who were saddled with it, remained in the future.

  In September 1940 there were rumours of a hardened Scottish unit, training for raids on the coast of Europe, which boasted its own bagpiper, a prospect viewed with deep concern by those whose lives depended on stealth and silence.

  The prospective raiders, who with other formations became known as commandos, a term from the Boer War, were men selected for their toughness, bravery and resourcefulness and, to a man, they were volunteers.

  ‘Volunteers,’ pronounced Sergeant Dunphy. ‘All volunteers.’ Ardley, Sproston, Tugwell and Jenkins looked collectively surprised. The sergeant brought the order in his hand closer to his eyes. ‘It says here. “Volunteers”.’ He sighed. ‘In the army you never volunteer. For anything.’

  They were on the parade-ground. It was drizzling. He stood them at ease. ‘We didn’t, sergeant,’ said Ardley. ‘None of us.’

  Dunphy said: ‘Well, somebody’s volunteered for you, by the look of it.’

  ‘Can we ask what we’ve volunteered for, sergeant?’ ventured Jenkins nervously.

  ‘It doesn’t say,’ said Dunphy staring at the order again but then looking up. ‘But it requires special training. You’re all going to Thorncliffe for an intensive course. And me as well. Three weeks. Maybe it’s maypole dancing.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, somebody must love us. You’ve each been made up to lance-corporal. Ardley to corporal.’ They cheered wildly. He stood smirking. ‘And I’m promoted to staff sergeant. That’s an extra twelve shillings.’

  When he had dismissed them he said: ‘See you in the NAAFI tonight. We’ll have a drink in celebration.’

  But as
he strode away Dunphy guessed they were heading for trouble.

  It was blackberry-picking time and, after such a summer of sun, the brambles were loaded. The three boys diverted from their normal patrol to gather and gorge on them. The patrols were, like those of the more adult and numerous army, becoming tedious. They gathered in Harold’s air-raid shelter and made decreasingly enthusiastic plans. The usual time for the end of the holidays had gone by and there was no news of a resumption of lessons. Spots had even voiced the unthinkable: that school sometimes had its enjoyments. Harold had silenced him but Boot said nothing.

  The best and fattest blackberries were to be found on the sloping fields back from the cliffs and they climbed there, scrambling along the grass, harvesting the fruit, sitting down in the sun and eating the lush shiny berries, reminding themselves of their promises to take full jam jars home to their mothers.

  Their route took them along the flank of the shelter-cave that was closest to the shore. The cavern was a favourite place to seek refuge because unfounded rumour had it that German guns on the French coast always overshot it, and it had suffered little damage apart from a fall of chalk and a burst water-pipe.

  It was not a cave with which, for all their daily explorations, they were particularly familiar. It was inhabited by powerful women who worked in the war factories and in the dockyard. They had become almost an Amazon community with a reputation for aggression and for keeping intruders at a distance. They had captured a snoopy air-raid warden, stripped him, taken him to the harbour and thrown him in.

  But the three boys saw no threat on this autumn morning as they harvested the blackberries. Some of the women had hung washing outside the entrance to the cave and they sniggered at the widespread knickers and big brassieres. There was no visible activity although they could hear voices echoing inside. The caves and tunnels were sometimes noisy with singing or laughter or fighting, the sounds floating above the town at night.