To Die but Once

  “Oh hell! I don’t know where to go, or what to do! But I know I can’t stay here and just worry until he walks through the door—or until there’s a policeman on the doorstep telling me he has bad news,” said Priscilla, her free hand on her forehead, as she lifted the glass to her lips and took several generous sips.

  “There’s little you can do, Pris—but if you must be on the move, perhaps you and Douglas should go down to Ramsgate, and ask questions—someone might have seen them. And if they come in, you can stop them.”

  Douglas cleared his throat. “Maisie—you go with Priscilla. I will hold you up if I go.”

  Maisie watched as Douglas looked away in an attempt to control his emotions. She turned to Priscilla, who was staring at her husband, her own eyes filled with tears.

  “I think you should discuss the situation,” said Maisie. “You might hear from the Sandersons soon in any case—and all the worry might be for naught. If it is, then it’s my fault, for which I am incredibly sorry—but I listened to Tim when he arrived at Chelstone yesterday, and he was full of what he had seen at Tonbridge station, as early evacuees from France were traveling through. In any case, I’ll go and make ready to leave.”

  Maisie turned away, though as she reached the threshold she looked back to see Priscilla take her husband’s outstretched hand.

  “Oh Tim, you young fool,” she whispered as she ran down the steps.

  Fifteen minutes later, Maisie had counted her petrol coupons and gave thanks that she had enough fuel in the tank to get to Ramsgate, though not enough for the return journey—and there was likely no petrol to be had on a Sunday. As she was loading a small overnight bag into the Alvis, Priscilla came running toward her along the street.

  “Bea Sanderson telephoned. They’ve been in Reigate with friends for a Friday to Monday, but they’re on their way back now. They’ve checked with a friend who lives close to where their boats are docked, or kept, or slipped—or whatever it is they do with boats—and yes, it transpires that Gordon and a friend who happens to fit Tim’s description went out for a sail early this morning and have not come back. But here’s the thing—they took the larger of Jerry Sanderson’s boats, the one that Gordon is not allowed to take out. Apparently Gordon and Tim usually go out in the smaller sailing yacht, but this is the larger motor yacht. He assures me that the boys are quite capable of taking her into the open Channel, but she’s forty-five feet, and worth a fortune. He seemed more worried about the yacht, though Bea is beside herself—like me.”

  “Priscilla—I think you and Douglas should go to Ramsgate. He shouldn’t be left here to feel he’s not playing a part while his son has put himself in the path of danger. You must be together.”

  “But Douglas doesn’t drive, and if I get behind the wheel, I know I will kill us.”

  Maisie shook her head and took a moment, stopping Priscilla from speaking by holding up a hand. “I have another idea. Though Billy doesn’t have a motor car, I know he can drive now, because he’s had a friend teach him. I’ll see if he’ll take you—in fact, I think he’ll jump at the chance because his son is with the expeditionary force and he will want to keep himself occupied, doing something useful. I’ll telephone him now.”

  Priscilla nodded. “Right—and if he agrees, I can at least get us to his home in Eltham to pick him up without causing too much damage.” She turned to walk away, but stopped and looked back at Maisie. “And at least we’ll be doing something, not just sitting around waiting.”

  Chapter 10

  “Of course I can drive them to Ramsgate—I’ve been thinking of going down there anyway, to keep an eye out for our Billy. Fool’s errand really—I don’t stand a chance of seeing him. It’ll be like a three-ring circus, and they say not many are getting away, not set against the number over there. But at least I’d feel I was a bit closer. Mind you, I’ve got to tell you, miss, I’ve only been behind the wheel of my mate’s little Austin, and Mrs. Partridge drives one of them really big old continental motors doesn’t she? Got the steering wheel on the wrong side, hasn’t it? Isn’t it a Bugatti, or a Lagonda, something like that? You could probably get our entire front room in the back seat of her motor.”

  “She has a new Bentley, and the steering wheel is on the right side. But don’t worry—she collides with something every day, so I am sure there are dents all over the coachwork. This is very good of you, Billy.”

  “Nah, all part of the job—and a Bentley, well, I’ll never get that chance again, will I? Truth is, they must be worried sick—young Tim should have a hiding for his trouble, no two ways about it. These boys are all losing their minds.”

  Maisie delivered the news to Priscilla, that they should depart now to meet Billy at his home, then placed another call to Billy.

  “Right you are, miss,” said Billy. “I’ll be waiting for them, a bag packed just in case.”

  “Before you go, Billy—tell me about Archie Coombes.”

  “Blimey, nearly forgot, what with all the worry going on. And I’ve been dying to tell you about him.”

  “Go on,” said Maisie, picking up a notebook and pencil.

  “He’s a fitter at an engineering works in Sydenham, and has lodgings over a shop in Camberwell. One bus ride and he’s at his job, though I think he’s got a bike. I had a talk with him while he was on a morning break, standing outside having a smoke. It’s been a while since I saw him, but he’s the dead spitting image of his father, so it’s not as if I had to look hard. He seemed a bit shaky, but that’s to be expected, and I saw a couple of blokes walk past, stop and talk, put a hand on his shoulder, then move along to light up. Having worked with you for a few year now, I reckon it was the way he was standing—it told people he didn’t want company.”

  “Yes, I can imagine that,” said Maisie.

  “Anyway, I went over, introduced myself. He throws down the ciggie, holds out his hand and thanks me for looking after his mum and dad. Then he took out a packet of ciggies again, and lit up. That was my first little niggle about him.”

  “Go on,” said Maisie.

  “He threw down a half-smoked cigarette end that still had a lot of tobacco in it, and he was not smoking cheap Woodbines sold by the ones and twos either—he had a packet of twenty.” Billy cleared his throat. Maisie heard a page being turned, and knew Billy was referring to his notes. “I asked him about Joe, about his work down there in Hampshire, and if he’d been down to see him. He said no, he didn’t know much about the work—he hadn’t actually seen Joe for a while. And he didn’t know the area. I asked him about Teddy Wickham, and he said he didn’t know where he was stationed, exactly, but he knew he’d looked in on Joe and he’d said his brother seemed on top form.”

  “And how did he know all this—did Teddy come back on leave?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. He had a forty-eight-hour pass a few weeks ago. And he gets on the blower, apparently.”

  “To whom? At the pub? How does Archie take the telephone call?”

  “I’m almost there.” The rustle of another page turning, and then flipping back echoed as if there were interference on the line. “He didn’t have much to tell me, and he was getting choked up. He said he has a telephone at his digs, because he’s a supervisor and can be on call at any time. I tell you, miss, I don’t believe that for a start. I know men who are supervisors in factories, and they don’t all get a free dog and bone! Anyway, the horn went for the men to go back inside the works, and he had to go—pinched out another hardly smoked ciggie, threw it down and went back inside.”

  “But you saw him again, didn’t you?” said Maisie.

  “Followed him back to his lodgings, nice and easy, so he couldn’t see me. Saw him go in, then come out half an hour later dressed like two penn’orth of hambone done up for the butcher’s window. Good suit—well, a fifty-bob Burton’s special. He looked a bit flash, if you ask me—reckon he’s seen too many of those American pictures. Had shoes on you could see your face in. He waited on the street, an
d then along comes a motor car. Black with green down the sides, you know, the doors. Newish, I would say, with a driver in the front and someone else in the back—I could see him moving forward to open the door. Then Archie got in, and off they went.”

  “Do you know the make of motor?”

  “It looked like a Rover Ten—a coupe, I reckon, because the fellow in the back had to push the front passenger seat for Archie to get in with him. I reckon it was the same one that was parked across the street from the office—the driver must have gone straight over there to Archie’s job.”

  “So Archie Coombes has a bit more money than we thought he might,” said Maisie. “Or at least he has friends who have money. Did you manage to look at the lodgings, by any chance?”

  “I went across and knocked on the door. Nicely turned out woman comes to answer, and says I’d just missed him. I did my best forlorn look, you know, the one I put on to get round someone, and I said I wanted to leave a message for him. I pulled out my notebook and began scribbling—you know, blah-blah-blah-blah—and asked if I could put it in his room. She looked suspicious, but I said it was private, and she said she would take me up there so I could just slip it on the table. The table? Lodgings only usually come with a rotten old cast iron bed with a horsehair mattress and a couple of blankets, p’rhaps a washstand if you’re lucky. So she took me up there, opened the door and there before me is a very nice gaff indeed—two rooms, one a sitting room and one a bedroom as far as I could see. ‘He had his own furniture put in here,’ said this landlady, all proud of the room. ‘He says that when he gets his house, he’ll leave it here for me.’”

  “When he gets his house?” said Maisie.

  “That’s what I thought. Doing very well, for a lad of—what?—twenty, is he?”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions—he could just be very careful with his money.”

  “Not buying new suits, he isn’t!”

  “The motor car outside—what was the driver like? Did you get a look at him?”

  “Older than Archie. I’d say he was in his thirties, or even forties, but you can never be sure, not from a distance, and I didn’t want to stare and draw attention. I was taking enough of a risk as it was.”

  “Yes, you were,” replied Maisie, remembering a time when Billy was beaten up by a suspect in a case, and left for dead—she had told him then, that under no circumstances must he ever put his life in danger ever again. No job was worth his life. “It’s unusual, and added to your observations about the Coombes family, it seems there are some significant contradictions.”

  “I’ll say there are,” interjected Billy.

  “On the one hand they are very tight,” continued Maisie. “They appear a very loving family, very honorable in fact. But these little things come to the surface—flashes of expenditure on items that would otherwise seem to be out of the budget of a family in their position, and then some discord in the home.”

  “So where’s the money coming from?”

  “I think we have to be very careful about following that particular stream—at least until we have more of an idea as to where it might lead. I’ll pop in to talk to Phil and Sally again, and I’ll see what I can do about finding Teddy Wickham. And I think I want to see Archie myself.”

  “Are you going down to Hampshire?”

  “Yes, but I might wait until I hear back from you or Priscilla.”

  A silence descended on the conversation. It was broken by Billy.

  “You think going down to Ramsgate is a fool’s errand, don’t you, miss?”

  “I confess, it was my suggestion. And I certainly think you’re right about it being chaotic there. But I know Priscilla, and I know she has to feel as if she has some control over the matter, so going to Ramsgate and being there when boats come in will keep her from losing her mind completely.”

  “There’s talk that this evacuation could go on for days. She won’t see him until the end, will she? Because what a lot of these little boats are doing is going in there, picking up men who’re waiting, then taking them to the bigger ships, the ones that can’t get in because of what they draw—it’s too shallow.”

  “You’re sounding like a sailor, Billy,” said Maisie.

  “My boy’s over there, so I’ve been reading up on it, this business of ships and where they can dock. And I’ve been listening to the wireless. They don’t say everything, sort of let out the news bit by bit.”

  “That’s what Douglas said. Apparently it’s being orchestrated by a man named Duff Cooper. So people are informed, but not enough to cause panic—he told Douglas that it’s no good trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the British people, because they know very well when the language used in newsreels is designed to manipulate them.”

  “That didn’t work, did it—your friend is panicking for all of us.”

  “I know—but most people are calm, getting on with their lives.”

  “Miss, you think the world of Tim. You must be worried sick.”

  “I am, Billy—really worried. And I’m not sure Ramsgate is the place to wait. When they come back toward the coast, I have a feeling they might make their way to Rye. They’ll take their usual route, because they will want to get home—and they’ll want to get home because they will have seen things they might never have imagined even in their worst nightmares.”

  Maisie considered her plans for the following day. Phil and Sally Coombes, Mike Yates and Archie Coombes were all on the list. And Vivian. Vivian Coombes was an interesting study, thought Maisie, not least because it was fair to assume she wanted to do what both her brothers had done quite successfully—get out from under their parents’ roof.

  When a telephone call came later, it was Priscilla reporting to say they had reached Ramsgate and could find out nothing.

  “Maisie, I never thought I would see this sort of thing again, really I—oh hell, the pips are going . . . Douglas . . . Douglas, give me some more change. Right—” There was a brief pause as Priscilla put more coins in the slot. “It—it’s taken me back, Maisie—I feel as if I’ve been swept into France in 1916. I remember driving back toward a casualty clearing station in my ambulance—I was so new, it was only my second or third run—and I passed a line of men walking the other way, young men who’d been in the trenches, filthy and sodden with mud, a good number wounded. It’s like looking at that all over again—” The line crackled, and Priscilla’s voice was clear again. “Anyway . . . anyway . . . we’ve spoken to some officials—well, they looked official. And no one has a record of this boat they’ve gone out on—Cassandra is her name. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? The boys joined unofficially, and no one was going to turn them back because everyone was so determined to get on themselves.” There was a gasp on the line, followed by a crackling silence.

  “Priscilla! Pris! What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a long line of men disembarking one of the boats, and they’re walking toward the station for trains to take them back into London—it’s a never-ending snake of soldiers. Billy and Douglas were waiting outside for me and—I can’t quite see what’s happened, but Billy just ran off. I’ve never seen him move so fast. I can’t quite see. Oh dear, he’s almost fallen—it’s his weak leg, he shouldn’t try to run like that.” Another break in the telephone line, which Maisie recognized as the pips sounding for more money. “I think I’ve almost run out of coins here, Maisie,” continued Priscilla. “I can’t say, but . . . but I think Billy has seen his son. Gosh, I hope he’s not mistaken—it would be so easy. Douglas is walking down there now. Hang on, let me open the door to get a better look.” There was a pause. Maisie heard voices in the background, the muffled sounds of people moving along outside the kiosk. Priscilla came back on the line. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness—” She wept into the telephone. “It is. It’s his son—he’s found his son.”

  And as the line disconnected, Maisie replaced the receiver, brought her hands to her face, and wept as well—for Billy, for Priscilla an
d Douglas, and what they already knew of war. She wept too for Phil and Sally Coombes—for whatever had come to pass in the family, they had still lost a beloved son.

  Mike Yates was in his office on the first floor of the old warehouse building, overlooking the brickyard where two vans were parked and men were loading tools and materials. One of the decorators loading a van directed Maisie up to the office, which was reached via a wooden exterior staircase and through a partially ajar door. A young woman was seated at a desk piled with papers and a ledger, and was typing a letter. Maisie saw the man she assumed was Mike Yates, standing at another desk in a small office that lay beyond a wood partition with pebbled glass windows. The typist did not look up until Maisie cleared her throat.

  “He’s through there, if you want him,” said the woman.

  “Oh. All right. Then I can just go in?”

  “Door’s open—anyone can go in. Never disturb him if that door’s closed though, not if you don’t want your head blown off.”

  “Really?” said Maisie.

  “Yes, really—he’s a nasty man. I’m off to join the ATS next week, and I would rather put up with that than him. Monster. Blimmin’ monster. If he has a go at me this week, I’ll just down tools and leave him to it. Him and his blimmin’ accounts.”

  “Right then. I’d better brace myself and go in.” Maisie stepped toward the open door, but turned to the young woman. “What’s your name, if I may ask?”

  “Charlotte Bright.”

  “Does he let you out for five minutes in the morning?”

  “He does this week—can’t stop me.”

  “If he doesn’t tell me to leave straightaway, could you meet me—perhaps downstairs or along the street, a few minutes after I leave?”