Our Castle by the Sea

by Lucy Strange

  “What did you do?” I knew the answer to that question already.

  “There was one of our boats still moored up. I jumped straight in and followed her,” he said. He couldn’t look at me then, just kept his eyes fixed on the flagstone floor. “I know boats, and I knew that boat would never make it to France.”

  “She did make it to France,” said a voice at the doorway. “She just didn’t make it home again.”

  Mags was awake.

  “Come and sit by the stove, Mags,” I said. “You need to keep warm.”

  She sat down beside me, and we huddled closely together like spooked sheep. I inspected the wound on her arm and changed the dressing, wrapping a clean bandage around and around, and fixing it with a safety pin.

  “So Faith did make it to Dunkirk,” I prompted.

  “Only just,” murmured Kipper.

  “The crossing was fine,” Mags said quietly. “There were lots of planes in the sky, though. I saw a German fighter brought down by Hurricanes, and another by the guns on a minesweeper I passed.”

  “That was where I lost you—in the confusion of that plane coming down,” said Kipper. “We still had a couple of miles to go till the French coast when I last saw you in the rust bucket.”

  Mags gave him a look.

  “In Faith, I mean.”

  “She packed up about a mile from Dunkirk, just after I passed the minesweeper,” Mags said. “The engine puttered out and stopped, and there was nothing I could do to get her started again.”

  “What did you do?”

  “A very kind man helped me.”

  “Who?”

  “Our Pa.”

  “Pa found you?”

  “He had spotted me behind him and was already on his way back to me when I broke down. I imagine he was planning on sending me straight home, but when it became clear the motorboat wasn’t going anywhere, I joined him in the lifeboat and we towed Faith behind us. I think he was very angry with me, but he didn’t say anything. He seemed sort of … proud as well as angry.”

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  “When we got to France, the soldiers were lined up on the beaches, waiting to be collected. It reminded me of playtime at school, when we were little. The teacher rang the bell and we would line up on the field to go back into the classroom. Do you remember?”

  “Yes.” And Kipper nodded too. School felt like something from another lifetime. We were different creatures now.

  “There were dead bodies,” Kipper said in a low voice. “Shot, or killed in explosions, or drowned and washed up on the sand. Some men looked like they’d given up hope and were sitting by themselves, all bent over and shaking. Others were trying to wade or swim out to the ships waiting in the deep water.”

  “We could go right into the shallows to collect them, though,” Mags went on. “Because the lifeboat was so much smaller. We took fifteen men at a time—ten in the lifeboat itself and five in the motorboat, tagging along behind. We ferried them to the destroyers and paddle steamers. We must have taken a hundred men out to the Margate Queen alone.”

  “I saw her,” I said, “I saw the Margate Queen coming home.”

  “They got back safely, then?”

  “Yes.” Mags held her mug of tea against her chest as if her heart needed the heat.

  “One man was panicking in the water. A body floated past him—it had been burnt I think—and this man just couldn’t bear it. He started screaming and trying to swim out towards us. He dragged a man under, and they both nearly drowned.”

  “What happened?”

  “Another soldier grabbed him and put a gun to his head. By the time he got onto the lifeboat, he had gone completely quiet. He just sat there—rigid, like a statue. Even when a Spitfire flew low overhead, he didn’t look up. When we got to the Margate Queen, he shook Pa’s hand, but he couldn’t say anything.”

  “What did Pa say?”

  Mags’s voice faded to a hoarse whisper. “He said, ‘Thank you, sir. And good luck.’ After the man had gone, Pa said to me, ‘We all have moments we live to regret. We’ve got no idea what fear will do to us until it takes hold.’ ”

  Mags was quiet for a moment. Her breathing was all jumpy. Some of her tea slopped over her fingers, and Kipper gently took the cup from her.

  “Mags,” I said very softly. “What happened to Pa?”

  She stared at the floor. Her dark hair fell forward over her face.

  “We were on our way home. We’d done our last run out to a destroyer, and Pa said we should head back. To be honest, I think he was worried about you being here all by yourself.”

  I almost laughed. Pa was there, surrounded by bombs and dogfights and machine guns and dead bodies, and he was worried about me.

  “Then we hit a mine. The bow of the lifeboat exploded, and we were both thrown into the water. It’s just a terrible blur now—I … I don’t really know what happened. I remember being underwater and not knowing which way was up. I took a lungful of water and I just thought, this is the end, then.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “No. Something hit my arm and I lunged at it. I clung on. It was a boat hook. I was hauled along and then a hand grabbed mine and pulled me up out of the water. It was Kipper.”

  I looked at Kipper and thought how odd it was to have him here with us in our kitchen. How different he seemed now from the boy I had thought I knew.

  “I heard the explosion,” Kipper said. “Saw it too. I pulled Mags out, and we looked for your dad.”

  Mags looked at me, and I saw a sob rise up in her throat. One hand moved up to cover her mouth, as if she couldn’t let the words out. Then: “We looked for ages, Pet. The lifeboat sank and pulled Faith down with it. Bits of boat were bobbing around in the waves. After I’d got my breath, I went back into the water to see if Pa had been trapped or caught on something.” She breathed and swallowed; then she managed to say, “He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. I couldn’t find him.”

  My throat was aching unbearably, and my chest too. I thought about the lullaby that I had sung to the sea as I prayed for Mags and Pa. I had felt so sure that some kind of magic was working … Just enough to bring Mags safely home, I thought. But not enough for my Pa.

  We sat in silence. Tears ran, one after another, down my face.

  Kipper stood up and said quietly, “I’ll leave you two alone, I think. I’d better get back to my mum. I sent word with one of the lads that I was all right, but I’d better get back …” He trailed off. “I’m really so sorry about your dad,” he said, and he went to the door.

  “Thank you, Kipper,” said Mags.

  He turned and nodded to her—holding her gaze for a moment—and then he left.

  After a few seconds, I managed to smile and say, “Kipper Briggs saved your life.”

  Mags shook her head and I saw that she could not understand any of the things that had happened. She just said, “He’s a good sailor, Kipper. He can turn that boat on a sixpence. He’ll make a fine captain one day.”

  “Kipper the Skipper,” I said.

  My sister attempted one of her grins.

  “Were you looking for Pa all night, Mags?”

  She shook her head. “By the time we gave up the search, it was getting late. We couldn’t come back the way we’d come—straight across the Channel—because we wouldn’t have been able to avoid the mines in the dark—or the sandbank for that matter, so we had to take a different route, a much longer one—we went northeast before crossing the Channel somewhere near Essex and then coming back down the English coast in the early hours of this morning. That route probably saved our lives.”

  The magic of the stones helped too, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud.

  Then quite suddenly, Mags gasped and said. “I’m so sorry, Pet—I’m sorry I couldn’t save our Pa. He wouldn’t even have been there if I hadn’t …”

  I put my arms around my big sister’s middle, like I used to when I was a little girl.

&n
bsp; I hugged her tightly, but I couldn’t say anything at all, because these are the words that were in my head: Pa drowned in the sea between England and France. He is never coming home. But now he will never be tried as a traitor and no one will ever need to know what he did. I won’t tell Mags, and I won’t tell Mutti. I will keep his terrible secret all by myself, and I will never let it go—it is my secret to keep for the rest of my life. And, no matter how much it burns, I will hold on to it tightly.

  There’s no question, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Baron went on. “I’m terribly sorry about your father of course, girls, but I have a duty to ensure you are both safe and looked after, and you simply cannot stay here alone.”

  She sat down, tucking her legs beneath the kitchen table. She was wearing a gray-brown cardigan. I was reminded of a kestrel again—the neatness of her, the precision of her bright, darting gaze. She seemed genuinely concerned, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept what she was saying. She turned now towards the lady she had brought with her—Mrs. Peacock, from the local authority.

  “Don’t worry! We will be able to accommodate you both somewhere,” Mrs. Peacock said chirpily, picking up her cue. “There is always a way!” She examined a piece of paper she had placed on the table but had to lean forward slightly to read it, as it was eclipsed by her own enormous bosom. She tutted. “Given the circumstances, fostering doesn’t seem to make sense when we might as well just sign them up for the evacuation program. If you’d gone a bit earlier, we might have been able to squeeze you both in together somewhere, but with things as they are now, it will probably have to be separate arrangements … Mags—”

  “Magda,” my sister corrected sharply.

  “Magda,” Mrs. Peacock repeated, smiling at Mags very deliberately. “You’re a strong, useful girl and you’re pretty tall too. I think there might be a place for you working on a farm. You’re a bit young to be a Land Girl as such, but we could probably make it work … Now, Pet—”

  “Petra.” My sister again.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Peacock cleared her throat. “At the moment it is looking likely to be Shropshire.”

  “Shropshire?” I blurted out. “Where is that, please? Is it by the sea?” A sudden panic took hold of me. I was imagining being trapped inland, away from the sea and the clifftops and the never-ending sky. I would never have said this out loud, but I felt that my Pa was part of the sea now. I felt that leaving the Castle would be a terrible betrayal: I would be abandoning the lighthouse and abandoning Pa too—leaving him behind.

  “Of course Shropshire’s not by the sea,” Mrs. Peacock scoffed. “Don’t you know the geography of your own country, young lady? It’s between England and Wales. A beautiful county.”

  I looked down at my shoes.

  Mrs. Peacock studied her piece of paper again. “In fact, there’s a very nice elderly couple in Shropshire who would apparently be happy to consider a longer term arrangement. They have asked for an orphan—”

  “We’re not orphans,” said Mags—quick as an arrow.

  There was a horrible pause. I felt my chest rising and falling quickly. I wanted to hide, but I just kept looking at my shoes.

  “No, dear,” Mrs. Baron said soothingly.

  “Our mother is not dead.”

  “Of course she isn’t.” The eyes of the two women met fleetingly.

  There was a feeling inside me that threatened to bubble up into words, but I swallowed it back down. It was a dangerous, treacherous feeling. I feel like an orphan, I wanted to say. I feel like there is no one here to protect me. For some reason I thought about that day when I was scurrying across the cliffs with Mrs. Rossi’s umbrella, convinced I was about to be struck by lightning. I felt just like that now—exposed, vulnerable. Anything could happen.

  When Mrs. Peacock spoke again, her tone was different—firmer, as if to put an end to Mags’s nonsense. “The evacuation program has been a tremendous success thus far.” She folded her arms across her bosom and tucked in her chins. “Many thousands of children have been happily and safely rehomed already.” She whispered to Mrs. Baron then, “Did you know the government refers to it as Operation Pied Piper—I think that’s charming, don’t you?”

  Mrs. Baron smiled politely and then tried to reason with us: “Now that we’ve had to withdraw our troops from France, the German invasion could happen any day, girls—any day!” Her eyes had started to shine with an emotion I couldn’t quite place. What was it? Alarm? “The government is now trying to get as many youngsters away from the southeast coast as possible. It’s highly likely that this is where Hitler’s army will land—”

  “Operation Pied Piper?” Mags interrupted. She was still staring at Mrs. Peacock. “Is that what they’re calling the evacuation program?”

  I flinched, recognizing what Mutti called Mags’s “challenging” voice.

  “And what of it?” Mrs. Peacock replied—her smile rather brittle now. “All the little children dancing merrily out of the town? It’s perfect!”

  “But they never come back,” Mags said, glaring at her. “That’s the whole point of the story. In most versions of the legend, the children never come back. In one version, the Piper drowns them all in the river. He steals the children in an act of revenge, because the mayor won’t pay him after he gets rid of the rats. It’s a story about greedy, untrustworthy bureaucrats. Whoever named the evacuation program Pied Piper is stupid.”

  Mrs. Peacock started flapping about like a flustered pheasant. “Well. I don’t think there’s any need for that sort of speculation, Magda, but I’m pleased to see that you’ve been paying attention in your English literature lessons …”

  “Our mother told us the story actually. Robert Browning’s poem is based on a German folktale. Or didn’t you know that either?”

  “All right, Magda …” Mrs. Baron said. “That’s enough.”

  My sister was just lashing out now—angry that our lives were being taken out of our hands: We were being dragged away from our Castle, and there was nothing we could do about it. Part of me was pleased to see Mags getting Mrs. Peacock on the ropes, but I knew it wasn’t going to change anything. First Mutti had been taken away from us, then Pa, and now we were going to be separated from each other and sent away. Things were beyond our control now. Lightning was crackling in the sky above us, and there was nowhere to hide.

  Mags’s face changed. It reminded me of the moment when Pa pushed up the lever and switched off the lighthouse lamp. “Thank you so much for all your help and hard work, Mrs. Baron and Mrs. Peacock. But you’re extremely busy ladies, I know—I’m sure you will need to be getting along. I’ll discuss the situation with my sister …” She escorted them both to the door.

  Mrs. Baron smiled a little, pulling on her gloves. “You’re good girls, really,” she said. “And you’ve had a terrible time of it. We’ll find somewhere nice for you. And you mustn’t worry about your lovely lighthouse. I shall get in touch with the coastguard and personally ensure that everything is well looked after while you are away. I promise.”

  Then Mrs. Peacock opened the door and very nearly trod on Barnaby, who was sitting on the doorstep, waiting to come in. He leapt away from her with a yowl and flew down the garden like a ginger comet.

  As soon as the door was closed again, Mags exploded: “The nerve of that woman! We’re not going anywhere, Pet.”

  “But, Mags, you heard what Mrs. Baron said—we’re minors and we can’t be left here on our own.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care what the bloody Baron said. We’re staying right here where we belong, Pet.” Her dark eyes were aflame with anger. “I’ll find a way.”

  Mags and I were sitting together up at the top of the lighthouse, nibbling sandwiches and talking quietly as it grew darker outside. The sunset had been astonishing—dark mauve, lavender, lilac … A red sky meant good weather the next day, I knew that, but I didn’t know what a purple sky meant. There was something unearthly about the color, something violent. It made me thin
k of the black eye Mags had got at school the day the war began.

  Pa’s absence was all around us in the lantern room—an aching shadow. I kept expecting to hear the sound of his boots coming up the lighthouse steps, or his cheery, tuneless whistle. Neither of us could bear to talk about him, though. I knew it would be too much for Mags. I was sure that she felt Pa’s death even more than I did: She felt it was all her fault. That morning, we had sent a letter to Mutti in her internment camp near Liverpool, telling her about everything that had happened—Dunkirk, Pa, and now the fact that we were going to be sent away from the Castle.

  Mags and I had spent every minute trying to come up with a plan that might mean we could stay put, but nothing had convinced Mrs. Baron so far. We were at the point of giving up.

  “She’s an interfering old dragon,” Mags spat.

  “She’s just trying to look after us and do her job, isn’t she?” I replied, trying my best to keep a lid on my sister’s temper. I was half-afraid that she’d storm down to Mrs. Baron’s house in the village and call her an old dragon to her face. Lord knows what would have happened then—we’d probably have been shipped off to Shropshire before our feet could touch the ground. “Let’s try talking to her again—or could one of the other teachers at school help? There must be someone we know who can convince Mrs. Baron to see things differently.”

  Mags appeared to think about it for a moment; then she stood up and gathered our plates. “I’ll take these down to the kitchen,” she said. “Then I might go out for a walk to clear my head.”

  “But it’s getting dark, Mags,” I called after her as she disappeared down the stairs. “Mags?”