by Milly Adams
Miss F joined them at the table. ‘I heard that muttering, Jake Kaplan.’
He said nothing, just ate like a mouse, nibbling from one end, and by the time he reached the other, he decided he liked it, though bits caught in his teeth. Miss F said, ‘It’s good roughage for the bowels.’ Phyllie and Jake grimaced at one another.
As September became October and the leaves began to change colour, the fruit season ended, and the women of the village took to digging in the allotments and spare ground. With the close of the jam season, Joe’s big kitchen fell silent, except for pickle making, which was an altogether tamer affair, with smaller shifts. Phyllie dug up Miss F’s front and back garden so the frost could break it up over winter. She also sowed kale, which Miss F swore by as a leaf vegetable for humans as well as animals. Phyllie and Jake exchanged groans, quickly muffled as she shot them one of her ‘not amused’ glares.
In October Phyllie also spoke to the WI at their monthly meeting about collecting any outgrown clothing for her brother’s work in London. Once a week she and Jake, with a small team of vacees, collected what people could spare. Young Lily Prince gave them all her husband’s clothes, because he had been killed on his merchant ship. They actually gave some of these clothes to the family who had escaped from the Channel Islands just after the Germans arrived and who were now living in Great Mitherton. The grandfather was grateful, though there was no father with them, because he was serving in the Royal Navy. Phyllie thought, as she often did, that no family was unscathed, and for a moment her anxiety about Sammy and Isaac rose to the surface.
By November the German bombs were exploding on cities like Birmingham, Liverpool and Coventry as well as London, and a few more evacuees arrived, though most settled in Great Mitherton or Swanwick. Every evening, Phyllie and Miss F sat by the wireless, listening to the news on the Home Service, and all the time there was the grinding sense of fear and uncertainty. At night, in bed, Phyllie reread the letters she had received from Sammy, particularly the last one, which had arrived on 3 November. He thought they’d be coming to Portland. He would phone Miss F’s number. They must talk, they really must, he had written. But that was all. He never actually said what they must talk about, and neither did she, but, in spite of her mother, oh, how she hoped.
On 4 November, before school, she arrived at the allotments and discovered that their sprouts had been picked off the stalk, the plants uprooted and scattered over the cabbages. Numbed, she cleared up the remains and put them onto the compost heap. It was then she saw the small footprints in the mud. Children, but who? Why? Perhaps to sell? There had been numerous incidents recently in Great Mitherton, and in response the allotmenteers there had formed a patrol. It had clearly encouraged the budding businessmen to move on to another area.
First it had been old Mr Milford’s allotment, and now hers. Was it the new evacuees? Then Phyllie caught herself. She was as bad as the villagers had been when Jake was revealed as a Jew with strange eating habits. The new evacuees would settle into country ways, just as all the others had done. It could be anyone, she made herself accept.
Instead of sprouts Phyllie picked cabbage. They used every bit of the vegetables they possibly could these days, chopping the outer leaves finely to minimise the coarseness of the stalks. She also pulled one or two parsnips. In fact, the WI was thinking of making parsnip jam because it was sweet in itself, and they did have some allotted sugar left. She carried her booty home, kicking off her boots in the front porch, because the mud on the side path was ankle deep. She padded along the runner to the kitchen and dumped the cabbage in the sink, checked the time on the wall, and then saw both Miss F and Jake standing together by the Aga grinning.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘There’s nothing to smile about; some little devil, or many little devils, have not only taken the sprouts, but yanked up the—’
‘They’re going to come to Dorchester on Saturday,’ Jake interrupted. ‘Dad and Sammy. They’re coming, and the vicar needs to see someone there, so he’s using his petrol coupons and will take us. They can only stay for an hour, but it’s an hour, Phyllie. You’ll know if he really wants to marry you, and Francois can meet Dad, and it means, for now, they’re safe.’
That evening she sat darning Jake’s socks and listening to the newsreader telling of the Greeks who were pushing back the Italians. His voice dropped as he moved on to Petain who wanted the French to collaborate with the Germans in Vichy, in order to maintain unity within the new European order. She exchanged a look with Miss F, who had been shaking her head over some paperwork at the kitchen table.
‘“European order” sounds frightening,’ Phyllie said, hearing Francois bark in Jake’s bedroom.
‘It’s all ruddy frightening.’ Miss F sighed, leaning back in her chair and running her fingers through her hair. ‘Parsnip jam is a good idea. I’ll need to go to Joe tomorrow. He’s hiding the WI allot—’ She stopped. ‘Ah, I shouldn’t have said that. The fewer people who know, the better.’
Phyllie began to move chess pieces around in her mind as she inserted the wooden mushroom into the heel of another of Jake’s socks. She continued to darn in silence for a moment, and then said, ‘So that’s where it went? From the cupboard to Joe’s? I wondered.’
Miss F looked hard at her. ‘What on earth did you think? Oh, that I’d sold the lot, you daft child? Perhaps it was me who nicked your sprouts too?’ She was laughing.
Phyllie concentrated on the sock, finding it less embarrassing. ‘Well, it was strange, and you said it was a secret, and … Oh, I don’t know.’
Miss F came to sit next to her on the sofa. ‘We have to keep the sugar safe. We buy what we need for the year from our Women’s Institute HQ in London. They have, in their turn, bought it with a grant from the government. We do not receive a penny for our work in the Centre, it is just our duty to do what we can to keep the nation fed. People who supply the fruit can sell it to the Preservation Centre, but no one does. We give it because we feel it is a privilege, though I have no idea what other WIs do. Once the jam is made, it is delivered to a central wholesale depot. Of course, some fruit is taken to market by those with plants, bushes and trees, who make their own, usually virtually sugarless, to be sold there. We sell our vegetables too, for our own pockets, so we’re not completely goody-two-shoes.’
She stopped, and pointed to the kitchen table. ‘You can see how crucial it is that we take good care, not just of our paperwork, but of our sugar. With rationing and shortages it’s a most valuable commodity, so if any goes missing it looks as if the WI is abusing its allotment.’
Phyllie said, ‘I’m so sorry to have thought …’
Miss F continued, well into her stride, ‘Catherine Harvey kept the figures, and now it’s up to me. We must account for every bag of sugar. The day you arrived I had a delivery, and I kept it in that cupboard temporarily until it could be taken to a place of safety. It went, overnight. So, now I will tell you that it’s in Joe’s store cupboard at the end of the milking parlour, which is where he keeps the dry animal food. It’s right at the back on the right-hand shelves. Well hidden. The store is locked. The dogs and geese will give warning if any strangers approach. Just in case anything happens to Joe and me, now, you will know.’ She touched her nose. ‘We women think of everything.’
The vicar left Phyllie and Jake in the ancient Dorchester town centre, just across the road from St Peter’s Church, which was almost halfway down the hill. It was where Sammy had said they should meet. Francois was on his rope, looking confused as people bustled past. They waited, looking up the hill, and then down it, then up again. Jake was pale and anxious. Phyllie felt the same, though she wore a little rouge and lipstick. She straightened her mackintosh and wished it had been warm enough to wear her grey jacket. She adjusted Jake’s scarf. He looked past her, then up the hill again.
‘They’re not coming, are they?’ he muttered.
‘Of course they are. We’re early. They said two.’ She snatched a look at
her watch. It was five minutes past two, so Sammy and Isaac were in fact late. She swallowed. Every minute they searched the pavements, and at last just four minutes later there was a flurry of activity further down the hill, on the other side of the road. They were running, dodging between buses, small canvas bags hanging off their shoulders.
‘They’re here,’ Jake whispered. Then he shouted, ‘They’re here.’
Sammy and Isaac had reached the pavement now and Jake flew towards his father, with Francois leaping and barking alongside. Sammy tore past him, then hesitated, swung round and ruffled Jake’s hair, before powering on again, his eyes never leaving Phyllie’s. At last he stood in front of her. His cap had HMS but no name. So much secrecy, thought Phyllie as he took her hands, and so much danger; but for this moment he was here. Neither of them spoke. He smelled of diesel. She longed to be held by him, kissed again, but what did he want?
People were knocking into them as they blocked the pavement. Sammy laughed suddenly, pulling her to the side. They stood against the shop window of a grocer’s. A queue stretched the other side of the doorway, up the hill, for ten yards. He said, ‘Let’s walk, or they’ll think we’re starting another queue in competition and we’ll be attacked. We’ve only got less than an hour, no time for altercations. So sorry we were late, it’s the trains.’
They walked side by side, downhill, leaving the queue behind and the church where they would meet Jack Thompson, the vicar. Jake and Isaac walked behind for a few paces, and then peeled off down a side road, waving to them as they went. Phyllie felt Sammy’s hand glancing off hers. Then his fingers interlocked with hers. It was wonderful. She felt safe, then embarrassed. This was so new. Did she dare to hope? She said, ‘Is your war bad, Sammy?’
‘Fun and games, fun and games. I just—’ He stopped, then looked straight ahead.
Down they went, heading for … well, where? Just down to the bottom of the hill. It must be a bit like his submarine, heading downwards. Say something, Sammy, my head is going round, thinking rubbish. Speak to me. He had always done this. He started something, then trailed off as though it was of no importance, driving her demented with impatience.
They crossed the road at the bottom of the hill and started back up again, and still he had said nothing, but his fingers were still linked with hers, and it felt extraordinarily marvellous and she wanted everyone to see, now all embarrassment was gone. His arm was against hers, his shoes were polished, and matching her strike. How often had he done that, matching her stride so they crossed the line together if there was a race on the common? ‘Stick with me, Phyllie,’ he had always shouted. ‘I’ll look after you.’
He stopped now, well past St Peters, pulling her back to stand next to the wall of a shop that was boarded up. ‘Phyllie, I need to know—’ He stopped. ‘On the platform, I was just mucking about—’ He stopped again, and her heart sank. ‘For Jake, you know. But, Phyllie, how did you feel?’
His face was close to her, his eyes on hers. She shook her head, No, tell me how you feel, she wanted to shout. He stepped back, and looked away up the hill, and then over at an army jeep that was roaring past. ‘Forget it, yes, I was just mucking about.’
He laughed, and started to walk on. She ran after him, dodging round two women with shopping baskets, their headscarves tied under their chins, grabbing his sleeve, and turning him back. ‘Don’t do this to me, don’t you dare. You must tell me, don’t you see? I need to know, Sammy.’
He looked at her hand on his arm, then at her. ‘But you shook your head?’
‘Don’t be so silly. You need to tell me,’ she shouted, so loud that the two women they’d just passed looked back. ‘You’re just so bloody annoying, Sammy.’
He grabbed her then, pulling her close. ‘I love you, is that enough? I love you, though you’re the annoying one. You always have been, pinching my shoes and filling them with mud. You see, I knew it was you, way back then, but I didn’t know this, until I kissed you. Then it all fell into place. I’ve been lonely. I didn’t know why. I’ve missed you …’ She kissed him then, in the middle of the street. The women tutted. She didn’t give a damn. His mouth opened under hers, and he held her, so tightly that it felt as though he would never let her go.
They walked back up the hill, their arms around one another’s waist, talking of the tree they had climbed, of their love, of her mother, but they both decided that could wait for another day. They reached the top of the hill and clung together. The wind was cold. She said against his mouth, ‘We should get out of the wind. You’ll catch your death.’
He held her face between his hands, staring at her as though he’d never seen her before, then kissed her forehead, her hair, saying, ‘I like to feel the weather. We don’t get a lot of that in the boat. But I’ll think of this moment, you and me, here, and it will bring in the oxygen. Just look at that sky, Phyllie.’
Together they scanned the racing clouds, the patches of blue, the glory of it all. It was then he said, ‘Well, will you? You know, marry me? Like I asked on the platform?’
At last. She leaned into his arms, tight against him, trying somehow to become so close that they could never again be separated, so close she could feel, and remember, the beating of his heart. ‘Of course, and we’ll be together for the rest of our lives. Oh, Sammy, ever since you asked me, I’ve thought about it, and hoped.’
They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, but it was only minutes. It would have to be enough, for now, but she knew, really knew, so the waiting would be bearable. Wherever he was, and she was, they would belong together.
Finally, she checked her watch. The time was nearly up. ‘We’ll be late. I’ll upset the vicar, you’ll upset Isaac.’ They were laughing as they ran down the hill, slowing down outside St Peter’s, where Jake stood with his arms out wide, to stop them. Isaac was crouching, stroking Francois, whose tongue lolled as though he was smiling.
Beside her Sammy was struggling to pull something from his canvas bag. It was a small box. He winked at Jake and opened the lid. Inside was a ring, with a small sapphire. ‘I’ve asked her, again. She said yes. So, shall I see if she’ll wear this?’ Jake nodded, his grin as wide as she’d ever seen it.
Isaac stood up, pulling his son to him, still stroking Francois, who leaned against his leg as Sammy tried to put the ring on her finger. It was just too small. Sammy’s face was a picture. She kissed him. ‘I’ll have it enlarged. It’s quite beautiful.’
He said, ‘Isaac and I must go. We need to catch that train.’ He was leaving her, just like that, and she couldn’t bear it. Isaac hugged his son, telling Francois to look after this most precious being, and then handed an envelope to Phyllie. ‘Please, read and think.’ She promised she would and together she and Jake watched as they ran in the direction of the station. They turned at the corner, waved, and were gone.
Phyllie and Jake were silent on the journey home. Sitting in the back of the vicar’s rackety car, Phyllie read Isaac’s letter. He asked if she would be prepared to act legally in loco parentis while he and his wife were absent, and if she would assume guardianship if the worst happened to both Rachel and he, and to his brother Otto? If so, would she sign the following form in front of witnesses and return it to the solicitor, which would protect her position, and write a letter confirming her agreement? He would take it from there. There was a stamped addressed envelope included with a ps at the bottom of the letter: Think carefully, dearest Phyllie, though I can’t think of anyone I would rather ask to take on this role.
She didn’t have to think. If Isaac didn’t return, it would mean that neither would Sammy so of course she would do it. Why? Because they would return; they must. If they didn’t, she and Jake would need one another, for the rest of their lives.
Chapter Nine
Wednesday 4 December 1940, HMS Vehement, out of Harwich
MOST OF THE old team was back, though with different officers, and all were under a new captain who stormed aboard, seething with energy
. He was younger than Old Tom, who would recover – that had been the consensus – and would be given a shore posting.
Lieutenant Diddy Davis, as he was called, because he was not the tallest bloke on the block, boomed through the loudspeaker as the boat rolled and surged on the surface on the way towards the seas off Norway. ‘Vehement is the best boat in the flotilla, indeed, in the whole fucking war. Why’s that? Because you’re the best team, or if you aren’t, you will be by the time we return. And we will return, you mark my words. D’you hear that? But that’s if, and I mean if, we stay alert, concentrate, and mistakes are not made – and if they are, they are reported before they bloody happen. That way we’ll live.’
Adrian was back on the hydrophones, more experienced and confident now, scanning even though they were on the surface. Who knew what the hydrophones would hear that the eye couldn’t see in this bastard of a weather front? Sammy was in oilskins and sou’wester on the bridge, taking a breather, giving the boy space, letting him ease back in. Some of the crew felt doubtful about his skills, thinking he’d made a balls of it last time, but from the way he was handling the hydrophones, and the men, they’d pretty soon see that all was well.
Vehement travelled on the surface towards the Norwegian waters, shrugging off the harsh gusts of wind and sleet. Sammy had heard they were to evade contact and continue surveillance of the Nazi chicken-run into and out of the ice-free port of Narvik, not for the first time. Intelligence was part of the game in a war, and they weren’t the silent service for bloody nothing. Last time they’d been rumbled on their way to pick up an operative out of Norway and had ended up sinking two German corvettes and a merchant ship.
