Rule Britannia

by Daphne Du Maurier

  “I want to thank you,” he said to Mad as soon as he entered the room, “for letting Joe come down and take my place. I don’t know what Peggy and Myrtle would have done without him, or you either, for that matter,” he added, turning to Emma. “Just being there, and talking to them, was what counted.”

  “You thank us?” Mad put out her hand and pulled him down beside her on the sofa. “What can we say to you? I don’t think either Emma or I got much sleep last night wondering what they were doing to you. As for your poor wife…”

  “Ah well, it’s over,” he said. “We’ll think no more of it. And it might have been worse. I wouldn’t have minded, you know, had it been our own chaps in charge down there at Poldrea, sticking us up against a wall and treating us like vandals or something, but what got my goat was to have this Yankee with an accent like a sheriff from some Western film, rasping out questions. I lost my temper at home, that’s what did it, no doubt, and I took care to keep a hold on myself when they got us in custody.”

  “Where did they put you?” asked Mad.

  “Why, they’ve taken over all Poldrea harbor,” he told her. “You know the offices of the port authority? Well, that’s their headquarters now. I was glad…” he lowered his voice, although the door was shut, “I was glad Mick knew nothing. If he had he might have broken down. They rap the questions at you thick and fast, it’s darn confusing, and for a lad of his age you couldn’t expect him to stand it. But don’t you worry,” he tapped Mad on the knee. “They didn’t get a damn thing out of either of us. And never will.”

  Emma remembered her grandmother’s remark on Friday evening about the Celts and the Saxons, and Mr. Trembath might have read her thoughts, for he smiled to himself a moment and then he said, “The old fellow from the wood turned up trumps, didn’t he? Maybe the Cornish and the Welsh have more in common than I thought. Let someone come in from overseas and try to push us around, and they’ll get more than they bargained for. He was down at the farm first thing this morning, Peggy tells me, beat your Joe to it by a short head. Oh, he’s a tough one, all right. Glad he’s on our side and not on theirs.”

  “Our side,” said Mad, “that’s the way to talk. I wish there were more of us.”

  “Don’t you worry,” replied Jack Trembath, shaking his head. “There’s plenty around here who gave the Yanks a welcome when they first landed but’d be glad now to see them go. Oh, not all, I grant you. There’s some, and I’m naming no names, who’d sell their birthright for easy money, the let’s-fleece-the-Yanks-brigade, same as they fleece the Midlanders, but others, who’ve got a spark of fire left in their bellies, they’re not going to take foreign rule lying down.”

  Emma shifted uneasily in her chair. She was thinking of Pa. And Mad evidently had been reminded of him too, because, with a slight alteration in her voice that only her granddaughter could recognize, she said, “I suppose we ought not to consider it foreign rule. It’s supposed to be a union, isn’t it? My son was trying to explain it all to us. I don’t understand finance, never have. But it seems without this union we’d be finished, a bankrupt nation. By the way, I was so sorry he couldn’t do anything about preventing the marines taking you away. We, Emma and I, felt very badly about it. The truth was, my son Vic knew nothing about the marine and what had happened. We didn’t tell him.”

  “Didn’t tell him?” Jack Trembath looked surprised.

  “No. You see, Vic in his work as a banker is closely associated with the government and all this business of USUK. Indeed, he is very much for it, encourages everything that is happening. So if we had told him the truth I really don’t know…” Mad was genuinely searching for the right words, which she had never done in the past when she had forgotten her lines and anything impromptu had sprung to her lips. “I really don’t know what he would have done. He might have felt it his duty to tell the Americans the marine was dead, and how he died.”

  The farmer was silent. He seemed shocked. He shook his head again slowly.

  “That’s awkward for you,” he said at last, “very awkward. Things have come to a pretty pass when a woman can’t ask advice from her own son. I don’t blame him, mind you, he’s got to work for the government, and if this is the way they feel the country should be run, and they can’t do it without the Yankee troops, why…” He rose to his feet and smote one fist upon the other. “I just can’t take it, that’s all. And when that boy Andy drew his bow last week, by God, you know I’d have been proud if my Mick had done it instead. It was the first blow struck in defense of this country, and I honor him for it.” He stood staring at both of them. “There now,” he said, “I’ve said my piece and I’ll go. And don’t you forget, if there’s anything I can do for you and for your boys any time of the day or night, I’m ready.”

  Later in the day Joe reported to Emma that he had seen two marines, and police with Alsatian dogs, crossing the plowed field to the grazing ground below the stile.

  “I was up in the shrubbery,” he told her. “They didn’t see me. They were following the trail all right that Mr. Willis led. They must have gone down to the beach afterwards. Whether they’d lose the scent down there I just don’t know. After all, it’s three days, isn’t it? The tide must have covered where he went.”

  “Do the others know?”

  “Only Terry,” he said. “I thought it best, by the way, to tell Terry the lot last night when we went to bed. I knew if I didn’t Andy couldn’t have kept it dark for long.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was pretty shaken. More than I had expected him to be. Not so much the killing, but the fact that Andy did it, and, what was more, did it for him. He said if the marines had been British he’d have felt almost bound to go and tell them and take the blame on himself. But since they were Yanks, and invaders, and after the way they’d roughed me up, and Mr. Trembath and Mick, he’d be prepared to get hold of the bow and arrow and shoot a dozen more himself.”

  There’s an expression for it, Emma thought, they call it snowballing. Someone starts something, and it gathers impetus, and more join in, and then there’s an avalanche, and people or property or causes are destroyed.

  The school bus waited for the boys at the top of the hill the following morning. It was decorated with a USUK flag, so Terry reported—he had swung himself up the drive to watch the departure. His own technical school was still closed. “Too many of us in custody, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said grimly.

  Mad suggested that she and Emma should go down to Poldrea to do the shopping. Emma would have preferred to go alone; Mad let loose in the supermarket could be a danger. However, nothing would dissuade her, and they set forth in the car, past the roadblocks still in position, passes inspected, and so along the beach road to the town. Emma was allowed to drive because, so it was grudgingly admitted, someone with a supposedly weak heart should not be seen at the wheel. When they arrived to park opposite the supermarket they found a line of cars parked all along the road, and a queue of people stretching round the corner of the street waiting to go inside.

  “I’m not surprised,” observed Mad. “They’re all hoping to stock up before supplies run out. Thank the Lord for our beetroot. I’ll take my place at the tail of the queue while you find somewhere to park.”

  Emma had to circle the narrow streets of Poldrea before she squeezed her car into a private turning near the Methodist chapel. As she walked back along the street she bumped into Mr. Willis coming out of Tom Bate’s fish shop.

  “Oh, hullo,” she said. “Nice morning for once.”

  He made her a sweeping bow. “Nice morning it is,” he replied, “for those of us alive to enjoy it.” One eye closed behind the spectacles and the side of his mouth twitched. “Pity it blew so hard last night—our friend fetched up on Kellyvardo rock instead of being taken out to sea as I’d intended. Wedged in among the winkles. You’d never credit it, would you?”

  Emma was silent. Mr. Willis could be referring to one thing only. Kellyvardo rock was a reef
about a hundred feet in length that was only uncovered at low tide. Marked with a pole, it was a hazard to shipping between Poldrea harbor and the anchorage beyond.

  He nodded to a passerby and then continued, “The pole broke with the force of the gale Saturday. It’s done it before, they don’t drive it deep enough. Tom Bate was fishing out there yesterday, he knows every inch of the place. He keeps a spike in his boat to test the depth around the reef when he cuts his engine, and the seaweed’s fresher there than I get it ashore, so he brings me some in for my plot of ground from time to time.” Mr. Willis paused, and winked at her again. “ ‘Hullo, what’s this?’ says Tom Bate as he pokes something soft near to where the pole had broken away, and he pokes again, and what he jabbed at wasn’t very pleasant, I can tell you. So he started his engine up again and returned to the harbor to report. Not a case of finding’s keepings, was it? No, not this time.”

  Emma waited for another passerby to walk out of earshot before she answered. “So the marines know?”

  “They know… they know… They kept Tom there in the office most of the day asking questions, so he was telling me, no more fishing for him yesterday. That’s why you won’t find any fresh fish in the shop this morning. Why don’t you go in and ask him?”

  Emma shook her head. “I think not,” she said, and then she added, “There was nothing on the news about it.”

  “There wouldn’t be,” he answered. “It’s unofficial, isn’t it? The only reason I know is because I came to call in at the shop for my batch of fresh seaweed.” He showed her his bulging bag.

  Unbelievably the eye closed once more, then he flourished his bag and crossed the street towards the ironmonger’s. Emma glanced furtively into the window of the fish shop. Dried kipper and salted cod were spread on the slab, and Tom Bate himself was watching her from behind his counter. He was smiling.

  “Anything I can tempt you with today, my dear?” he called.

  “No. No, thank you very much,” she replied.

  She walked along the pavement to the supermarket. Her grandmother had worked her way up the queue and was practically at the swing doors. She was talking to the wife of the bank manager.

  “They’re going to call it the ducat,” she was saying over her shoulder, “historical associations and all that, rather like the doubloon. But whether ducats are to be based on the dollar my son didn’t say. I think he’s flying to Brazil to find out. Your husband will know all about it. The ducat, I mean.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned it to me,” replied her companion in the queue. She looked bewildered.

  “Oh… oh well,” Mad shrugged, “perhaps it’s premature. My son’s a merchant banker, he’s always one step ahead of everyone else.”

  Other people in the queue were listening. “I’ve never heard of the ducat,” whispered one woman to another, “nor the doubloon. It’s too bad, just as we had all got used to the decimal currency too.”

  “Very hard on pensioners,” grumbled an old man.

  “Never mind,” smiled Mad. “Now this rationing has started you and I will get orange juice at half-price like the babies.”

  They moved forward through the swing doors. Bedlam was within, people pushing in all directions. The assistants were flustered. There were notices on the counter saying, “Sorry. No bacon, no butter, no cheese.” Customers were filling their wire baskets with tins marked “Not Rationed Yet,” but each tin was up in price.

  “We don’t want any of this,” said Mad. “It’s old stock pushed to the front to catch our eye.”

  The assistant behind the counter flinched. “I assure you it’s not, madam,” he said, “but you have to understand we have been put out by the new regulations worse than our customers. This rationing’s come into effect so quickly that we just don’t know where we are. We’ve had no deliveries yet, and we don’t know when to expect them.”

  Mad jostled her way ahead, her granddaughter at her heels, and finally turned away with a curious assortment of goods ranging from a dozen pallid-looking chops and several pounds of sausages to rolls of lavatory paper and some bottles of orange squash.

  “Darling, I don’t think Dottie had any of these on her list,” ventured Emma.

  “Never mind,” said Mad, “they’ll come in useful. And we mustn’t hoard. I always remember that from the war, people who hoarded were beyond the pale. What about fish?”

  “No,” said Emma. She looked around her. People outside the supermarket were still edging forward. I must lie, she thought. “The shop’s closed. Tom Bate isn’t there.” Yet they would have to pass his shop to get back to where she had parked the car. “I tell you what,” she said hurriedly. “You go along to the chemist’s and I’ll bring the car there and pick you up.”

  “But I don’t want anything from the chemist,” Mad protested.

  “The boys do. They’re running out of toothpaste. So am I. And you know the soap is better there than it is at the supermarket.”

  Emma fetched the car and picked Mad up in front of the chemist’s, and they stopped at the roadblock for their passes to be scrutinized once again. Mr. Libby, the landlord of the Sailor’s Rest, was talking to the marine on duty. He waited for the formalities to finish, then stepped forward and bent his head to the car window.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I think I have something that would please you both. I’m not letting on to everyone, mind you.” His tone was confidential. “They deputy commander of the camp here is a most obliging gentleman. What I say is this, if you do your best for them, they do their best for you.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How about a case of Californian wine?” he murmured.

  “Sorry,” said Mad, “it’s against my principles.”

  Mr. Libby opened his eyes wide. “No hanky-panky, I promise you. It’s all above board. No duty to pay. We’re to import it in large quantities, and this happens to be the first consignment. You’ll find it much sweeter on the palate than the French stuff you usually have.”

  “Mr. Libby,” said Mad, “when I come to you asking for Californian wine you will know I’ve got tired of drinking my own bathwater at home. Drive on, Emma.” She turned to her granddaughter as they shot up the hill. “I meant it too. Californian wine my foot! So Vic was right. What else are we going to be forced to consume, is what I ask myself. Teabags forever, I suppose… and those terrible clams.”

  It was not until the car was safely parked in the garage that Emma turned to her grandmother and said, “I saw Mr. Willis in Poldrea. They’ve found Corporal Wagg.”

  Mad was silent. Then as she climbed out of the car she asked, “Where?”

  “Kellyvardo rock. Yesterday. And it was Tom Bate in his boat who found him. That’s why I didn’t want you to go to the shop.” She explained to her grandmother the few details she knew.

  Mad was gathering her purchases together. “They’ll have done a postmortem, no doubt,” she said. “I wonder what happens in a case like this—whether they hold an inquest, as they would with one of our own people, or whether it’s different, being one of theirs.”

  “I don’t know,” said Emma, “and there’s nobody we can ask.”

  “We just have to wait, then. And listen to the news.”

  Emma could not decide whether it was a relief that the body had been discovered or whether it made things worse. On balance, worse. While it was missing people might still think the corporal had possibly absconded, was in hiding somewhere; and she and the rest of them who knew the truth could hope that the gale that had blown through Friday night and Saturday might have taken the body far up-channel, so that possibly it would be days, weeks, before it ever came ashore, and then perhaps would be unrecognizable. But not now. Wedged fast under a crevice in Kellyvardo rock. She thought of the times she and the boys had walked out there at low water—it was only at dead of springs that the entire reef was uncovered, and they could paddle around it looking for shrimps, for prawns. She shuddered. She would never be able to do it again.

  Dottie gr
eeted them with the news that Pa had telephoned during their absence. “He sounded in a great hurry, Madam, leaving for the airport there and then. New York first and then Rio. His secretary has his addresses. I think he was upset not to speak to you.”

  Mad gestured. “I shouldn’t have gone out. I could at least have heard his voice.”

  She looked dispirited, so unusual for her. Emma unloaded all their packages on the kitchen table and followed her grandmother.

  “What do you mean, you could have heard his voice?” she asked.

  “Just that.”

  A feeling of panic seized Emma. “You don’t think he’s going to crash, be hijacked, something frightful?”

  “No, darling, of course not. Forget it. Just a silly pang.”

  Emma tried to imagine herself sitting beside Pa on the jet to New York. She’d have been borne away from the trials and turmoil here at home. Pa would make a fuss of her, spoil her, introduce her with a show of pride as his “suddenly grown-up daughter.” New York, Rio, everything exciting, fresh, but above all safe, and no responsibility beyond the easy one of having to do him proud and look her best. Instead, beleaguered here at home, Mad nearly eighty, the boys dependent too, and every day that dawned becoming more ominous, more of a threat.

  She went off for a walk over the fields and down to the cliffs in the afternoon simply to goad herself still further into a feeling of horror and rejection combined, which she knew the sight of Kellyvardo rock would bring. The sea was oily flat. A different bay, surely, from the storm-tossed cauldron of Saturday. No rollers, no curling crests. The slimy surface of Kellyvardo humped above the still water, and the broken spar snapped at the center looked like the bent figure of a man. On the far horizon, rounding the Dodman, came the distant shape of an approaching warship. Emma stood watching until the gray outline became clearer. It was the warship returning to cast anchor in the bay. Would it help the situation, at least as far as it concerned themselves, or make it worse? Colonel Cheeseman had surely been more understanding than his deputy, but he might have changed his attitude now the missing corporal had been discovered dead. And Wally Sherman? Would he have changed as well? She turned her back on the sea and climbed up the hill to the plowed field once more. How many hours in that jet across the Atlantic would it have taken, sitting beside Pa? Had it touched down already, themselves forgotten, and was Pa being greeted by his business friends in a V.I.P. reception lounge?