"Winter in Madrid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sansom C. J.)

Chapter Two

THE JOURNEY TO Will’s house normally lasted under an hour, but today it took half the afternoon, the tube continually stopping and starting. In the underground stations little knots of people sat on the platforms, huddled together, whey-faced. Harry had heard some of the bombed-out east-enders had taken up residence in the tubes.

He thought of spying on Sandy Forsyth and a sick, incredulous feeling lurched through him. He scanned the pale tired faces of his fellow passengers. He supposed any one of them might be a spy – what could you tell from people’s looks? The photo kept coming back to his mind: Sandy’s confident smile, the Clark Gable moustache. The train lurched slowly on through the tunnels.

IT HAD BEEN Rookwood that gave Harry his identity. His father, a barrister, had been blown to pieces on the Somme when Harry was six years old, and his mother had died in the influenza epidemic the winter the First War – as people were starting to call the last war – ended. Harry still had their wedding photograph and often looked at it. His father, standing outside the church in a morning suit, looked very like him: dark and solid and dependable-looking. His arm was round Harry’s mother, who was fair like Cousin Will, curly tresses falling round her shoulders under a wide-brimmed Edwardian hat. They were smiling happily into the camera. The picture had been taken in bright sunlight and was slightly overexposed, making haloes of light around their figures. Harry had little memory of them; like the world of the photograph they were a vanished dream.

After his mother died, Harry had gone to live with Uncle James, his father’s elder brother, a professional army officer wounded in the first battles of 1914. It had been a stomach wound, nothing you could see, but Uncle James’s innards troubled him constantly. His discomfort worsened an already peppery disposition and was a constant source of worry to Aunt Emily, his nervous, anxious wife. When Harry came to their house in the pretty Surrey village they were only in their forties, but they seemed much older already, like a pair of anxious, fussy pensioners.

They were kind to him, but Harry had always felt unwanted. They were childless and never seemed quite to know what to do with him. Uncle James would clap him on the shoulder, almost knocking him over, and ask heartily what he was playing at today, while his aunt worried endlessly about what he should eat.

Occasionally he went to stay with Aunt Jenny, his mother’s sister and Will’s mother. She had been devoted to his mother and found it difficult to be reminded of her, although she showered him, guiltily perhaps, with food parcels and postal orders when he went to school.

As a child Harry had been taught by a tutor, a retired teacher his uncle knew. He spent much of his free time roaming the lanes and woods around the village. There he met the local boys, sons of farmers and farriers, but though he played cowboys and Indians and hunted rabbits with them he was always apart: Harry the Toff. ‘Say “awful”, Harry,’ they would goad him. ‘Or-ful, or-ful.’

One summer day when Harry came home from the fields, Uncle James called him into his study. He was just twelve. There was another man there, standing by the window, the sun directly behind him so that at first he was just a tall shadow framed by dust motes. ‘I’d like you to meet Mr Taylor,’ Uncle James said. ‘He teaches at my old school. My alma mater. That’s the Latin right, eh?’ And to Harry’s surprise he laughed nervously, like a child.

The man moved forward and took Harry’s hand in a firm grip. He was tall and thin and wore a dark suit. Black hair receded from a widow’s peak on his high forehead and keen grey eyes studied him from behind a pair of pince-nez.

‘How do you do, Harry.’ The voice was sharp. ‘You’re a bit of a ragamuffin, aren’t you?’

‘He’s been running a little wild,’ Uncle James said apologetically.

‘We’ll soon tidy you up if you come to Rookwood. Would you like to go to Public School, Harry?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Your tutor’s report is good. Do you like rugger?’

‘I’ve never played, sir. I play football with the boys in the village.’

‘Rugger’s much better. A gentleman’s game.’

‘Rookwood was your father’s old school as well as mine,’ Uncle James said.

Harry looked up. ‘Father’s?’

‘Yes. Your pater, as they say at Rookwood.’

‘Do you know what pater means, Harry?’ Mr Taylor asked.

‘It’s Latin for father, sir.’

‘Very good.’ Mr Taylor smiled. ‘The boy might just do, Brett.’

He asked more questions. He was friendly enough but had an air of authority, of expecting obedience, which made Harry cautious. After a while he was sent from the room while Mr Taylor talked with his uncle. When Uncle James called him back Mr Taylor had gone. His uncle asked him to sit down and looked at him seriously, stroking his greying moustache.

‘Your aunt and I think it’s time you went away to school, Harry. Better than staying here with a couple of old fogeys like us. And you should be mixing with boys from your own class, not the village lads.’

Harry had no idea what a Public School was like. Into his head came a picture of a big building full of light, bright like the light in his parents’ photograph, welcoming him.

‘What do you think, Harry, would you like to go?’

‘Yes, Uncle. Yes, I would.’

WILL LIVED IN a quiet street of mock-Tudor villas. A new air-raid shelter, a long low concrete building, stood incongruously by the grass verge.

His cousin was home already and answered the doorbell. He had changed into a brightly patterned jumper and beamed at Harry through his glasses.

‘Hello, Harry! Made it all right, then?’

‘Fine, thanks.’ Harry clasped his hand. ‘How are you, Will?’

‘Oh, bearing up, like everyone. How are the old ears?’

‘Just about back to normal. A bit deaf on one side.’

Will led Harry into the hall. A tall, thin woman with mousy hair and a long disapproving face came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel.

‘Muriel.’ Harry made himself smile warmly. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, struggling on. I won’t shake hands, I’ve been cooking. I thought we might skip high tea, go straight on to dinner.’

‘We’ve got a nice steak for dinner, though. Got an arrangement with the butcher. Now, come on up, you’ll want a wash.’

Harry had stayed in the back bedroom before. There was a big double bed and little ornaments on doilies on the dressing table. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Will said. ‘Have a wash, then come down.’

Harry washed his face at the little sink, studying it in the mirror as he dried himself. He was putting on weight, his stocky frame starting to become fat through recent lack of exercise, the square jaw rounding out. People told him it was an attractive face, though he always thought the regular features under his curly brown hair a little too broad to be handsome. There were new lines around the eyes these days. He tried to make his face as expressionless as he could. Would Sandy be able to read his thoughts behind such a mask? It had been the done thing at school to hide your feelings – you showed them only through a set mouth, a raised eyebrow. People looked for little signs. Now he must learn to show nothing, or untrue things. He lay on the bed, remembering school and Sandy Forsyth.

HARRY HAD LOVED the school from the start. Set in an eighteenth-century mansion deep in the Sussex countryside, Rookwood had originally been founded by a group of London businessmen trading overseas to educate the sons of their ships’ officers. The House names reflected its naval past: Raleigh and Drake and Hawkins. Now the sons of civil servants and minor aristocrats went there, with a leavening of scholarship boys funded by bequests.

The school and its orderly routines had given Harry a sense of belonging and purpose. The discipline could be harsh but he had no desire to break the rules and seldom got lines, let alone the cane. He did well in most classes, especially French and Latin – languages came easily to him. He enjoyed games too, rugger and especially cricket with its measured pace; in his last year he had been captain of the junior team.

Sometimes he would walk on his own round Big Hall, where the photos of each year’s sixth forms hung. He would stand looking at the photograph for 1902, where his father’s boyish face stared out from a double row of stiffly posed prefects in tasselled caps. Then he would turn to the tablet behind the stage to the Great War fallen, the names picked out in gold. Seeing his father’s name there as well set tears pricking in his eyes, quickly brushed away lest someone see.

The year Sandy Forsyth came, in 1925, Harry entered the fourth form. Although the boys still slept in a big communal dormitory, they had had studies since the previous year, two or three each to a little room with antiquated armchairs and scarred tables. Harry’s friends were mostly the quieter, more serious boys, and he had been glad to share a study with Bernie Piper, one of the scholarship boys. Piper came in as he was unpacking.

‘ ’Ello, Brett,’ he said. ‘I see I’ve got to put up wiv the smell of your socks for the next year.’ Bernie’s father was an East End grocer and he had spoken broad cockney when he arrived at Rookwood. It had gradually mutated into the upper-class drawl of the others, but the London twang always reasserted itself for a while when he came back from the hols.

‘ ’Ave a good summer?’

‘Bit boring. Uncle James was ill a lot of the time. Glad to be back.’

‘You ought t’ave spent it serving in my dad’s shop. Then you’d know wot boring is.’

Another face appeared in the doorway, a heavily built boy with black hair. He put down an expensive-looking suitcase and leaned against the doorpost with an air of supercilious detachment. ‘Harry Brett?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Sandy Forsyth. New boy. I’m in this study.’ He hauled in the suitcase and stood looking at them. His large brown eyes were keen and there was something hard in his face.

‘Where have you come from?’ Bernie asked.

‘Braildon. Up in Hertfordshire. Heard of it?’

‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘Supposed to be a good school.’

‘Yeah. So they say.’

‘It’s not bad here.’

‘No? I hear they’re quite hot on discipline.’

‘Cane you as soon as look at you,’ Bernie agreed.

‘Where are you from?’ Forsyth asked.

‘Wapping,’ Bernie said proudly. ‘I’m one of the proles the ruling class allow in.’ Bernie had declared himself a socialist the term before, to general disapproval. Forsyth raised his eyebrows.

‘I bet you got in more easily than I did.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I’m a bit of a bad lad.’ The new boy took a packet of Gold Flake from his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Bernie and Harry glanced at the open door. ‘You can’t smoke in the studies,’ Harry said quickly.

‘We can shut the door. Want one?’

Bernie laughed. ‘You get caned for smoking here. It’s not worth it.’

‘OK.’ He gave Bernie a sudden broad grin, showing large white teeth. ‘You a red, then?’

‘I’m a socialist, if that’s what you mean.’

The new boy shrugged. ‘We had a debating society at Braildon, last year one of the Fifth spoke for Communism. It got pretty rowdy.’ He laughed. Bernie grunted, giving him a look of dislike.

‘I wanted to lead a debate in favour of atheism,’ Forsyth went on. ‘But they wouldn’t let me. Because my dad’s a bishop. Where do people go here if they want a smoke?’

‘Behind the gym,’ Bernie answered coldly.

‘Right-ho then. See you later.’ Forsyth got up and sauntered out.

‘Arsehole,’ Bernie said as he disappeared.

AND THEN, later that day, Harry was asked to spy on Sandy for the first time. He was in the study alone when a fag appeared with a message Mr Taylor wanted to see him.

Taylor was their form master that year. He had a reputation as a disciplinarian and the junior boys held him in awe. Seeing his tall, thin figure striding across the quad, the habitual severe expression on his face, Harry would think back to the day he had come to Uncle James’s house; they had scarcely spoken since.

Mr Taylor was in his study, a comfortable room with carpets and portraits of old headmasters on the wall; he was devoted to school history. A large desk was strewn with papers for marking. The master stood in his black gown, sorting through papers.

‘Ah Brett.’ His tone was cordial as he waved a long arm to beckon Harry in. Harry stood in front of the desk, hands behind his back in the approved manner. Taylor’s hair was receding fast, the widow’s peak now a separate black tuft beneath a balding crown.

‘Did you have good holidays? Aunt and Uncle OK?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The master nodded. ‘You’re in my form this year. I’ve had good reports of you, I shall expect great things.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The master nodded. ‘I wanted to talk to you about the studies. We’ve put the new boy in with you in place of Piper. Forsyth. Have you met him yet?’

‘Yes, sir. I don’t think Piper knows.’

‘He’ll be told. How are you getting on with Forsyth?’

‘All right, sir,’ Harry said neutrally.

‘You may have heard of his father, the bishop?’

‘Forsyth mentioned him.’

‘Forsyth comes to us from Braildon. His parents felt Rookwood, with its reputation for – ah – order, was better suited to him.’ Taylor smiled benignly, making deep creases appear in his thin cheeks. ‘I’m telling you in confidence. You’re a steady boy, Brett; we think you could be prefect material one day. Keep an eye on Forsyth, will you?’ He paused. ‘Keep him on the straight and narrow.’

Harry gave the master a quick look. It was an odd remark; one of the studied ambiguities the masters spoke in more and more as the boys got older. You were expected to understand. Officially it was frowned on for boys to sneak on one another, but Harry knew many masters had particular pupils whom they used as sources of information. Was this what Taylor was asking him to do? He knew instinctively he didn’t want to; the whole idea made him uneasy.

‘I’ll certainly help show him around, sir,’ he said carefully.

Taylor eyed him keenly. ‘And let me know if there are any problems. Just a quiet word. We want to help Forsyth develop in the right direction. It’s important to his father.’

That was clear enough. Harry said nothing. Mr Taylor frowned a little.

Then an extraordinary thing happened. Something tiny moved on the master’s desk, among the papers; Harry saw it out of the corner of his eye. Taylor gave a sudden shout and jumped away. To Harry’s amazement he stood almost cringing, eyes averted from a fat house spider scuttling across his blotter. It stopped on top of a Latin textbook, standing quite still.

Taylor turned to Harry, his face bright red. His eyes strayed momentarily to the desk and he looked away with a shudder.

‘Brett, get rid of that thing for me. Please.’ There was a pleading note in the master’s voice.

Wonderingly, Harry took out his handkerchief and reached for the spider. He picked it up and held it gently.

‘Ah – thank you, Brett.’ Taylor swallowed. ‘I – ah – we shouldn’t have such – er – arachnids in the studies. Spread disease. Kill it, please kill it,’ he added rapidly.

Harry hesitated, then squeezed it between finger and thumb. It made a faint pop, making him wince.

‘Get rid of it.’ For a moment, Taylor’s eyes seemed almost wild behind the gold-rimmed pince-nez. ‘And don’t tell anyone about this. Do you understand? You may go,’ he added brusquely.

AT WILL’S HOUSE the soup at dinner was tinned, heavy with watery vegetables. Muriel apologized as she passed it round.

‘I hadn’t time to make any, I’m sorry. Of course, I’ve no woman to help now. I have to deal with the cooking, looking after the children, the ration books, everything.’ She pushed back a stray hair and gave Harry a challenging stare. Will and Muriel’s children, a thin dark boy of nine and a little girl of six, sat watching Harry with interest.

‘It must be difficult,’ he replied solemnly. ‘But the soup’s fine.’

‘It’s scrumptious!’ Ronald called loudly. His mother sighed. Harry didn’t know why Muriel had had children; he supposed because it was the done thing.

‘How’s work?’ he asked his cousin to break the silence. Will worked in the Foreign Office, at the Middle East desk.

‘There could be problems in Persia.’ The eyes behind the thick glasses were troubled. ‘The Shah’s leaning towards Hitler. How was your meeting?’ he asked with exaggerated casualness. He had phoned Harry a few days before to tell him some people connected with the Foreign Office had spoken to him and would be in touch but had said he didn’t know what it was about. From his manner now, Harry thought he had guessed who the ‘people’ were. He wondered whether Will had talked about him in the office, mentioned a cousin who had been to Rookwood and spoke Spanish, and someone had passed the information on to Jebb’s people. Or was there some huge filing system about citizens somewhere, which the spies had consulted?

He nearly answered, they want me to go to Madrid, but remembered he mustn’t. ‘Looks like they’ve got something for me. Means going abroad. A bit hush-hush.’

‘Careless talk costs lives,’ the little girl said solemnly.

‘Be quiet, Prue,’ Muriel snapped. ‘Drink your soup.’

Harry smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s nothing dangerous. Not like France.’

‘Did you kill many Germans in France?’ Ronnie piped up.

Muriel set her spoon in her plate with a clang. ‘I told you not to ask questions like that.’

‘No, Ronnie, I didn’t,’ Harry said. ‘They killed a lot of our men, though.’

‘We’ll get them back for it, though, won’t we? And for the bombing?’

Muriel sighed deeply. Will turned to his son.

‘Did I ever tell you I met Ribbentrop, Ronnie?’

‘Wow! You met him? You should have killed him!’

‘We weren’t at war then, Ronnie. He was just the German ambassador. He was always saying the wrong thing. Brickendrop, we used to call him.’

‘What was he like?’

‘A silly man. His son was at Eton and once Ribbentrop went to the school to meet him. Ribbentrop stood in the quad with his arm raised and shouted, “Heil Hitler!” ’

‘Crumbs!’ Ronnie said. ‘He wouldn’t have got away with that at Rookwood. I’m hoping to go to Rookwood next year, did you know that, cousin Harry?’

‘If we can afford the fees, Ronnie, maybe.’

‘And if it’s still there,’ Muriel said suddenly. ‘If it’s not been requisitioned or blown up.’ Harry and Will stared at her. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and rose.

‘I’m going to get the steaks. They’ll be dry, they’ve been under the grill.’ She looked at her husband. ‘What are we going to do tonight?’

‘We won’t go to the shelter unless the siren goes,’ he replied. Muriel left the room. Prue had gone tense. Harry noticed that she had a teddy bear on her lap and was clutching it tightly. Will sighed.

‘When these raids began we started going up to the shelter after dinner. But some of the people there – well, they’re a bit common, Muriel doesn’t like them, and it’s pretty uncomfortable. Prue gets frightened. We stay at home unless Wailing Winnie starts.’ He sighed again, staring out of the French windows across the back garden. Dusk was deepening into night and a clear full moon was rising. ‘It’s a bomber’s moon. You go over, if you like.’

‘It’s all right,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll stay with you.’

His uncle’s village was on the ‘bomber’s run’ from the Channel up to London; the sirens often went as the planes passed overhead, but they ignored them. Harry hated Wailing Winnie’s swirling howl. It reminded him of the sound dive-bombers made: when he first came home after Dunkirk he would clench his teeth and clench his hands till they turned white every time the sirens went off.

‘If it goes in the night, we’ll get up and make for the shelter,’ Will said. ‘It’s just over the road.’

‘Yes, I saw it.’

‘It’s been bad. Ten days of it leaves you so bloody tired, and God knows how long it’s going to go on for. Muriel’s thinking of taking the children to the country.’ Will got up and drew the heavy blackout curtains. There was a sound of breaking glass from the kitchen, followed by an angry cry. He hurried out. ‘Better go and help Muriel.’

THE SIRENS STARTED at one a.m. They began in Westminster and, as other boroughs followed, the wailing moan rippled outwards to the suburbs. Harry woke from a dream, in which he was running through Madrid, darting in and out of shops and bars, asking if anyone had seen his friend Bernie. But he was speaking in English, not Spanish, and nobody understood. He rose and dressed in moments, as he had learned to do in the army. His mind was clear and focused, no panic. He wondered why he had been asking for Bernie, not Sandy. Someone had phoned from the Foreign Office at ten, asking him to go to an address in Surrey tomorrow.

He twitched the curtain open a crack. In the moonlight shadowy figures were running across the road, making for the shelter. Huge searchlight beams stabbed the sky as far as the eye could see.

He went out into the hall. The light was on and Ronnie stood there in pyjamas and dressing gown. ‘Prue’s upset,’ he said. ‘She won’t come.’ He looked at the open door of his parents’ bedroom. A loud, terrified child’s sobbing could be heard.

Even now, with the siren wailing in his ears, Harry felt reluctant to invade Will and Muriel’s bedroom, but he made himself go in. They were both in dressing gowns too. Muriel sat on the bed, her hair in curlers. She nursed her sobbing daughter in her arms, making soothing noises. Harry wouldn’t have thought her capable of such gentleness. One of the little girl’s arms hung down, still clutching the teddy bear. Will stood looking at them uncertainly; with his thin hair sticking up and his glasses askew he seemed the most vulnerable of them all. The sound went on; Harry felt his legs begin to tremble.

‘We should go,’ he said brusquely.

Muriel looked up. ‘Who the bloody hell asked you?’

‘Prue won’t go to the shelter,’ Will explained quietly.

‘It’s dark,’ the little girl wailed. ‘It’s so dark there, please let me stay at home!’

Harry stepped forward and grasped Muriel’s bony elbow. This was what the corporal had done on the beach after the bomb fell, picked him up and led him gently to the boat. Muriel gave him an astonished look.

‘We have to go. The bombers are coming. Will, we have to get them up.’ His cousin took Muriel’s other arm and they raised her gently. Prue had buried her head in her mother’s breast, still sobbing and holding the teddy bear tightly by its arm. Its glass eyes stared up at Harry.

‘All right, all right, I can walk by myself,’ Muriel snapped. They released her. Ronnie clattered down the stairs and the others followed. The boy switched off the light and opened the front door.

It was strange to be in a night-time London without streetlamps. There was no one outside now, but the dark shape of the shelter was visible in the moonlight across the road. There was a distant sound of ack-ack fire and something else, a low heavy drone from the south.

‘Hell,’ Will said. ‘They’re coming this way!’ He looked suddenly confused. ‘But it’s the docks they go for, the docks.’

‘Maybe they’re lost.’ Or want to hit civilian morale, Harry thought. His legs had stopped shaking. He had to take charge. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get over the road.’

They began running but Muriel was slowed by the little girl. In the middle of the road Will turned to help her and slipped. He went down with a crash and a yell. Ronnie, ahead, paused and looked back.

‘Will, get up!’ Muriel’s cry was hysterical. Will tried to lift himself but fell back. Prue, the teddy bear still dangling from her arm, began screaming. Harry knelt by Will’s side.

‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ Will’s face was full of pain and fear. ‘Leave me, get the others into the shelter.’ Behind him Muriel held the keening Prue tightly. Muriel was swearing, over and over again, language Harry wouldn’t have thought she knew.

‘Bloody fucking bastard Hitler oh God Christ!’

Still the siren wailed. The planes were almost overhead. Harry heard the whine of bombs falling, growing louder and ending in a sudden loud crump. There was a flash of light from a few streets away, a momentary tug of hot air at his dressing gown. It was so like Dunkirk. His legs were shaking again and there was a dry acid taste at the back of his mouth but his mind was very clear. He had to get Will up.

There was another whine and crump, closer, and the ground shook with the impacts. Muriel stopped swearing and stood stock still, eyes and mouth wide open. She bent her thin dressing-gowned body over to protect her still weeping daughter. Harry took her arm and looked into her terrified eyes. He spoke to her slowly and clearly.

‘You have to take Prue into the shelter, Muriel. Now. See, there’s Ronnie; he doesn’t know what to do. You have to get them in. I’ll bring Will.’

Life came back into her eyes. She turned wordlessly and began walking rapidly towards the shelter, stretching out her other hand for Ronnie to take. Harry bent and took Will’s hand. ‘Come on, old chap, get up. Put your good leg down, take the weight.’

He hauled his cousin to his feet as another great crash sounded, no more than a street away. There was a brief yellow flash and a wave of blast almost toppled them over but Harry had his arm round Will and managed to keep him steady. There was a feeling of pressure and a whining noise in Harry’s bad ear. Will leaned into him and hopped on his good leg, smiling through gritted teeth.

‘Don’t get blown up,’ he said. ‘The sneaky beakies will be furious!’ So he had guessed who wanted me, Harry thought. More bombs fell, yellow flashes lighting the road, but they seemed more distant now.

Someone had been watching from the shelter, holding the door open a crack. Arms reached out, taking hold of Will, and they fell together into the crowded darkness. Harry was guided to a seat. He found himself next to Muriel. He could just make out her thin form, still bent over Prue. The little girl was still sobbing. Ronnie was huddled against her as well.

‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ Muriel said quietly. ‘I just couldn’t bear any more. My children, every day I think about what could happen to them. All the time, all the time.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’

‘I’m sorry I went to pieces. You got us through.’ She raised an arm to touch Harry’s, but let it fall, as though the effort were too much.

Harry leaned his throbbing head against the gritty concrete wall. He had helped them, taken control, he hadn’t fallen apart. He would have a few months ago.

He remembered his first sight of the beach at Dunkirk, walking over a sand dune then seeing the endless black columns of men snaking into a sea dotted with boats. They were all sizes – he saw a pleasure steamer next to a minesweeper. There were smoking wrecks too, and German dive-bombers buzzing overhead, shrieking down and dropping their bombs on the boats and the men. The retreat had been so fast, so chaotic, the horror and shame of it had been almost too much to take in. Harry was ordered to help line the men up on the beach for evacuation. Sitting in the shelter, he felt again the numb shame that came then, the realization of total defeat.

Muriel muttered something. She was on his deaf side and he turned to her. ‘What?’

‘Are you all right? You’re shaking all over.’ There was a tremble in her voice. He opened his eyes. The gloom was spotted with the red pinpoints of cigarette ends. The shelterers were quiet, trying to hear what was happening outside.

‘Yes. It just – brought everything back. The evacuation.’

‘I know,’ she muttered.

‘I think they’ve gone now,’ someone said. The door opened a crack and someone peered out. A draught of fresh air cut through the odour of sweat and urine.

‘It’s dreadful, the smell in here,’ Muriel said. ‘That’s why I don’t like to come over, I can’t stand it.’

‘Sometimes people can’t help it – they lose control when they’re frightened.’

‘I suppose so.’ Her voice softened. Harry wished he could make out her face.

‘Is everyone all right?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ Will answered from Muriel’s other side. ‘Good work there, Harry. Thanks, old man.’

‘Did the soldiers – lose control?’ Muriel asked. ‘In France? It must all have been so frightening.’

‘Yes. Sometimes.’ Harry remembered the smell as he approached the line of men on the beach. They hadn’t washed for days. Sergeant Tomlinson’s voice came back to him.

‘We’re lucky – things are going faster now the little boats are coming over. Some poor sods have been standing here three days.’ He was a big, fair-haired man, his face grey with exhaustion. He nodded towards the sea, shaking his head. ‘Look at those stupid buggers, they’ll capsize that boat.’

Harry followed his gaze to the head of the queue. Men stood shoulder deep in the cold Channel. At the head of the line men were piling into a fishing smack, their weight already tipping it over at an angle.

‘We’d better go down,’ Harry said. Tomlinson had nodded, and they began marching to the shore. Harry could see the fishermen remonstrating with the men still piling in.

‘I suppose it’s lucky discipline hasn’t broken down completely,’ Harry had said. Tomlinson turned to him, but his reply was lost in the scream of a dive-bomber, right above them, drowning the fainter whine of the falling bombs. Then there was a roar that felt as though it would burst Harry’s head as he was lifted off his feet in a cloud of red-stained sand.

‘Then he wasn’t there,’ Harry said aloud. ‘Just bits. Pieces.’

‘Sorry?’ Muriel asked, puzzled.

Harry squeezed his eyes closed, trying to shut out the images. ‘Nothing, Muriel. It’s OK, sorry.’

He felt her hand find his and clutch it. It felt work-roughened, hard, dry. He blinked back tears.

‘We made it tonight, eh?’ he said.

‘Yes, thanks to you.’

The warble of the all-clear was audible. The entire shelter seemed to exhale and relax. The door opened fully and the leader stood silhouetted against a starry sky lit with the glow of fires.

‘They’ve gone, folks,’ he said. ‘We can go home again.’