Voyage of the Sparrowhawk

by Natasha Farrant

  Soon, Lotti told herself, she would explain to her aunt and uncle about Federico. It wasn’t fair to keep him hidden away. She rose at dawn to walk him before the Netherburys woke, and she gave him a good run in the afternoon, but he spent the rest of his days when Zachy was working tied up behind the gardener’s cottage, which was no life for a sociable dog. To be fair, she had tried to tell her uncle. On two occasions, she had gathered up the courage to knock on the door of the study. Each time, when Hubert Netherbury bade her enter, Lotti’s eyes drifted to his hand, flexing and unflexing, and she lost her nerve.

  Soon, soon, soon … but not yet.

  ‘Soon’ was also Ben’s reply to Albert Skinner, each time the policeman returned to the Sparrowhawk. Once he heard that Clara would be tutoring Ben and Lotti, Albert had said no more about school, but on the subject of Sam he was relentless.

  ‘Any news?’ he asked, at least once a week.

  ‘Not long now,’ Ben would reply, buying time.

  Soon, soon, soon …

  The days lengthened, bluebells flooded the woods. Under normal circumstances, Lotti would have loved to drift among them, as she used to with her parents. Papa had adored bluebells, the way the flowers hovered over the forest floor like a secret blue sea. ‘Where shall we sail to on this ocean of blue?’ he would say on their walks, and together he and Lotti and Mama would stay out late into the evenings, breathing in the sweet hyacinth scent and making up adventures.

  But these were not normal circumstances and there was never time to linger.

  Under the surface, secrets bubbled.

  And sooner or later, all secrets bubble over.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the day before the Netherbury’s Scottish holiday, Aunt Vera held a Women’s Institute fête committee coffee morning. Included in the meeting was to be Lady Clarion, whom Aunt Vera was so very anxious to impress.

  Lotti was to Be Useful, handing round sandwiches.

  She rose feeling optimistic. It was the last day of Clara’s probation period: soon, the threat of boarding school would be gone for ever and from tomorrow, for almost a whole week, she would have Barton to herself. When the Netherburys returned, happy and relaxed from their holiday, she would introduce them to Federico.

  Almost definitely.

  For now, she just needed one more day of Exemplary behaviour.

  Lotti took no chances. She got up earlier than usual for Federico’s morning walk, she kept him on the lead in case he went anywhere he shouldn’t, she stayed out only half their usual time in case her aunt or uncle also rose early. It was just unfortunate that in her hurry to return to the house, as she tied Federico up behind Zachy’s cottage, she did not notice how very frayed his rope had become …

  Back in her room, Lotti dressed uncomplainingly in a stiff, old-fashioned sailor suit chosen by her aunt, braided her hair and washed her face until it shone. When she went down for breakfast, Aunt Vera looked at her almost approvingly.

  The weather was glorious, Barton Lacey beautiful. The French windows in the drawing room were opened to let in the scent of stocks and lilies. The committee ladies began to arrive, and Aunt Vera puffed with pride as they complimented her on her beautiful home. Lotti bit her tongue and picked up the sandwich tray.

  ‘You are a credit to your aunt,’ Lady Clarion informed her.

  Lotti dropped an exemplary curtsey. Aunt Vera simpered.

  Everything was going splendidly.

  But Federico was growing restless.

  For eight weeks, since he had first been tied up behind Zachy’s cottage, he had been working on a plan to be free. The plan was simple – he was a simple dog – but it was good.

  Federico was chewing through his rope.

  How much he chewed depended on how bored he was. Today, after his shortened walk, he was very bored indeed.

  And so he chewed, and chewed.

  At about the time Lotti started to hand around the sandwiches, the last frayed strand of rope snapped. Federico bounded away from the cottage, streaked silently past Zachy working in the fruit frames, and fled in search of Lotti.

  Down through the beech alley where Lotti’s papa had taught her to ride, past Lotti’s Mama’s secret reading spot, over the little bridge. He stopped to relieve himself on the elegant lawn, dug a hole, rolled in it, leaped into the stream, vigorously shook off the water then, remembering his original intention, set off again.

  He was thirty feet from the French windows when the pheasant caught his eye.

  Federico was fast. The pheasant, unused to predators in the calm grounds of Barton Lacey, was unprepared. Federico approached at a gallop. By the time the pheasant took off in a great beating of wings, the little dog was snapping at its tail feathers.

  The pheasant lost its balance. Federico leaped. The pheasant screamed. Federico’s jaws snapped shut around its neck.

  His entrance to the drawing room was spectacular. Several ladies shrieked. The vicar’s wife – a practical person – tried to remove the pheasant from the dog’s jaws. Federico refused to let it go. Aunt Vera turned poppy-red, then the colour of dirty snow.

  Lotti froze.

  Delicately, gracefully, as though offering a great gift, Federico deposited the dead pheasant at her feet then sat back and wagged his tail.

  Yip?

  ‘Well, I never!’ Lady Clarion exclaimed. ‘If that isn’t Malachy Campbell’s chihuahua!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Aunt Vera screamed for her husband. The committee ladies all left, but not before Lady Clarion had explained how Malachy Campbell had once tried to sell her this very dog – it had been thinner then, to be sure, but she would know it anywhere by its ears! Now Lotti hunched by the French windows clutching a trembling Federico as she tried to explain herself to her incandescent uncle and distraught aunt.

  ‘I didn’t steal him, I rescued him,’ she insisted. ‘It was so cruel, the way Mr Campbell was keeping him. Someone had to do something …’

  ‘Do something?’ thundered Uncle Hubert. ‘I’ll show you something! I am going to call the police.’

  He strode out into the hall where the telephone was kept. There was a brief, shouted conversation, then he marched back in again.

  ‘I spoke to that constable, Albert Skinner,’ he raged to his wife. ‘He says no one’s reported the dog’s theft; says this Campbell character’s a well-known crook and probably stole the dog in the first place. Then when I ordered him to fetch the creature himself, he had the nerve to tell me he’s off on leave! Someone can come up from the dog pound tomorrow, he said. So now –’ he glared at Lotti – ‘on top of harbouring an actual thief, we have to shelter the little brute as well.’

  He lunged forward and seized Federico by the scruff of the neck. The little dog tried to howl but his throat was pulled too tight and he choked.

  ‘You’re hurting him!’

  Lotti forgot that she was afraid of her uncle. Still holding Federico by the neck, Hubert Netherbury marched out of the drawing room down the servants’ corridor to the scullery, roaring for Sally to open up the coal cellar. Pulling, punching, kicking, Lotti fought him every step of the way. Again and again he pushed her aside. Again and again she returned to fight.

  But she was so much smaller than her uncle. Sally, tight-lipped, opened the door to the coal cellar. Lotti tried to bar the way, but Hubert Netherbury pushed her out of the way with one hand and threw Federico downstairs as if neither weighed more than a feather.

  Then he turned to his niece.

  This time, when he slapped her, Lotti saw stars.

  Her head was still spinning when he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back along the corridor and up the stairs to her room.

  ‘Savage!’ he thundered, as he flung her inside.

  He slammed the door behind her and locked it.

  ‘Let me out!’ screamed Lotti. ‘This is my house! You can’t lock me in!’

  ‘I can do what I damn well want until you’re twenty-one!’ her uncle
bellowed back. ‘You’ll stay in there until I can find a school desperate enough to take you!’

  Lotti kicked the door.

  ‘I won’t go to school! And I won’t let you send Federico to the pound!’

  And then Lotti’s blood froze as her uncle began to laugh. ‘Oh, there’s no fear of that,’ said Hubert Netherbury, and somehow it was more frightening when he spoke softly than when he shouted. ‘The pound’s much too good for the little brute. I’ll arrange for him to be shot instead.’

  *

  Sally came up later with a tray of food and found Lotti sitting on the floor with her back against the wall.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ Lotti’s voice was hoarse from screaming, her face puffy from crying.

  Sally put the tray down and joined Lotti on the floor.

  ‘Want a hug?’

  Lotti nodded and began to cry again. They sat quietly for a while with Sally’s broad arms wrapped round Lotti’s slight frame, until at last her sobs subsided and they were able to talk.

  ‘I got news,’ said Sally. ‘You ready to hear it?’

  Lotti sniffed.

  ‘Your uncle’s found a school that’ll take you,’ said Sally. ‘It’s called St Winifred’s Academy for Girls, and it’s in Pembrokeshire. Lady Clarion recommended it, so you can imagine what your aunt’s like, all thank you, your gracious ladyship, etc. Snob. You’re to leave on Sunday, the day after tomorrow. I’m to see you on to the train. I’m sorry, Lots. I know it’s the last thing you wanted.’

  Strange, thought Lotti, how she didn’t even care. Her uncle could send her to the planet Mars for all the difference it would make. Only one thing mattered now.

  ‘And Federico?’

  ‘Oh, Lots.’ Sally’s arm tightened round Lotti’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. A lad’s coming from Home Farm tomorrow to put him down, before your uncle and aunt leave for Scotland.’

  So that was that, thought Lotti, dully. Poor, darling, naughty Federico. She had tried to rescue him and instead condemned him to death. She shivered, remembering her night in the coal cellar at school, the awful loneliness stretching on and on.

  Lotti frowned. The night that stretched on and on …

  Federico wasn’t dead yet. There was a night, a whole night, in which to rescue him from the coal cellar. She could smuggle him down to the Sparrowhawk! Ben would help – Clara too, probably. Together they would find a way …

  Lotti wriggled out of Sally’s arms.

  ‘Sally,’ she said. ‘Will you help me?’

  *

  How noisy a house is, when you need it to be quiet!

  Lotti, fully dressed, lay under her bedcovers. She listened to her aunt and uncle come upstairs, heard the sound of the bathroom taps, their muffled voices, then at last silence. Shortly after midnight Sally tapped softly on Lotti’s door and turned the key in the lock.

  Down the landing they padded, as softly as possible, but how loud the squeak of the floorboards, how creaky the stairs … And Lotti’s heart!

  Surely, someone would hear her heart!

  They paused in the hall to make sure no one was following, then crept towards the servants’ corridor. As they approached the scullery, Federico heard them and began to howl.

  ‘Soon as I open the door, you grab him and get him out of here,’ Sally hissed. ‘And for lawks’ sake, make him shut up.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ whispered Lotti.

  ‘I’m going to pile up the coal under the delivery hatch, then I’m going to shove it open. Make it look like the dog climbed up and pushed his way out.’

  ‘Uncle will never believe it.’

  ‘You got a better plan?’

  Down into the coal cellar they went, and again Lotti shivered at memories of school. But then into her arms leaped Federico. She clamped her hand round his muzzle to silence him, at the same time showering him with kisses.

  ‘Go,’ urged Sally.

  In a world of shadows, under the beaming moon, Lotti and Federico ran through the garden and out on to the hills. They entered the woods. The scent of bluebells rose to meet them, heady and sweet in the night air. Lotti pushed away memories of her parents. Now was not the time to think of those lovely evenings lingering in the woods. But then as they approached the canal, a nightingale began to sing, and she doubled over with the punch of another memory.

  Evening, high summer, overlooking a river, an adult voice singing in a garden.

  Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui a le coeur gai … Sing, nightingale, sing, you whose heart is light …

  Lotti picked Federico up and held him close again.

  No more running. Federico was saved, but they were still going to be separated. She was still being sent away.

  Lotti, whose heart was not light but heavy, walked slowly the rest of the distance to the Sparrowhawk, to make her final moments with Federico last.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ben couldn’t sleep. After twisting and turning for hours in his berth, he pulled on his boots and jumper, gathered up his blanket, shook Elsie awake and went up with her on to the roof.

  A strange day. First Lotti hadn’t come to fetch him for lessons as she usually did. Secondly, when he went to Clara’s alone, he found her door locked and a short note for him and Lotti pinned to its frame, explaining that she was going away. And thirdly …

  Thirdly, this afternoon, another visit from Albert Skinner.

  ‘Just wanted to let you know that I’ve written to the War Office,’ Albert had told Ben. ‘Asked to know when that brother of yours is coming home. Thought, coming from a policeman, maybe they’d give an actual date. I’m away until Wednesday to visit my own boy. Never quick, these things, but it’s a few days since I wrote so hopefully there’ll be an answer by the time I’m back.’

  That was all, but it had rocked Ben’s world.

  Soon, Albert would know the truth. And then what would happen? Up on the roof of the Sparrowhawk, Ben wrapped his arms round his body and hugged himself miserably.

  How often he and Sam had slept up here in summer! Never well, but better than in the stuffy cabin. And in early August, Nathan always came up too, to watch the Perseids. They sat bundled together under blankets, drinking endless tea, making wish after wish as shooting stars fell from the sky. Ben loved the Sparrowhawk always, but never more than at night.

  What would he wish for tonight, if he saw a star? That was easy. He would wish for Sam to come back. No, for Sam never to have gone. For Sam never to have gone, and Nathan to still be alive, and for the whole war never to have happened.

  Oh, where was his brother?

  Elsie had fallen asleep again, but now something roused her from her slumber, and she scrambled to her feet with a short bark of recognition. Ben followed her gaze and saw Lotti and Federico walking towards the Sparrowhawk.

  He was surprised, of course, but also worried. It wasn’t just that it was the middle of the night – there was something about the way Lotti was walking, slowly, as if she didn’t want to arrive … She stopped by the Sparrowhawk and looked up, and he saw that she had been crying. He held out a hand to help her up on to the roof, and Federico scrambled after her.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Lotti flung herself on to the blanket. ‘Oh, Ben, it’s horrible!’

  In chaotic order, she recounted the events of her day.

  ‘Uncle Hubert was so angry,’ she concluded. ‘Maybe it is better if I go to school, even if they shut me in coal cellars and make me eat worms.’ She tried to smile, even as she raised her hand to rub her cheek where her uncle had hit her. Ben, who had been listening with growing anger, loved her for it. If he had an uncle who hit him and threatened to kill his dog, he didn’t think he would be able to smile.

  ‘I will be brave,’ Lotti continued, ‘but I need your help, Ben, to look after Federico. Will you? Because he will literally die if you don’t.’

  ‘Lotti …’

  At the tone of Ben’s voice, Lotti shuffled round.
For the first time since she arrived it occurred to her that the hour was late, that the air was cold and that rather than wide awake and sitting on the roof, Ben should have been asleep in the cabin.

  ‘Something’s happened to you too.’

  Furiously, Ben blinked back tears. If Lotti could smile through her problems, the least he could do was not cry.

  ‘Skinner,’ he grunted.

  ‘Constable Skinner?’

  ‘He’s only gone and written to the War Office to ask when Sam’s coming home.’

  Lotti gazed at him, as if expecting more. She didn’t understand. How could she, when he had never told her the truth?

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Him being a policeman, maybe you’ll get an answer at last. How long has it been since the last letter from the War Office?’

  Ben glared at the canal, glinting in the moonlight.

  ‘There was no letter from the War Office.’

  He had tried to sound calm, like lying for weeks to your best friend about something so fundamental was completely normal, but it came out sounding angry.

  Lotti gasped. Ben stared harder at the canal.

  ‘No letter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You lied to me!’ Lotti was outraged. ‘I didn’t even know you could lie.’

  ‘It was the only way I could think not to go with Mercy!’ Ben defended himself. ‘I had to stay on the Sparrowhawk. What if Sam came back and I wasn’t here? But now the War Office are going to tell Skinner Sam’s not coming back, and then he’s not going to let me carry on living here, is he? And then what’ll happen to the Sparrowhawk? What’ll happen to Elsie?’

  His voice broke as he looked at his dog, fast asleep again on the blanket with her head in his lap. Lotti set aside her outrage.