Saplings

  ‘There wasn’t any other way. And it was dreadfully unfair. Everybody knew it was.’

  Alex appreciated Tony’s sense of injustice and his helplessness to gain his rights. It was sickening that particular letter had missed him, but even if he had received it the business would have been tricky to handle. He would have written to the head and asked him to see Tony and, if he could, tidy up the grievance. He would write now and explain his son was not a bully. Fundamentally, though, the difficulty still stood, Tony’s trust in adult sense of fair play had been rocked, if not broken. He had taken, for lack of other redress, the law into his own hands.

  ‘I shall put this right, Tony, with the head, though, of course, his ruling about the desk will stand; it’s never any good trying to make wrong things right by doing wrong things. I quite see how you felt, it wasn’t fair so you were jolly well going to show everybody you wouldn’t take it lying down.’

  ‘I certainly was.’

  ‘But it didn’t do any good.’

  ‘Except that I was right and it wasn’t fair.’

  Alex knew that he must, perhaps tomorrow, go into the question of justice and taking the law into your own hands, but it needed thought. He must be sure that Tony understood. No one got justice always. There was the danger of harbouring a grievance so that it warped you; a danger to which evidently Tony had a tendency. Queer in so open and talkative a child. But these last months had been hard on him, no proper home and the school over full. Thank God they were making a better arrangement.

  ‘We’ll drop this for now but I can’t have important letters going astray. I shall give you ten typed stamped envelopes addressed to me at the factory and my secretary will be instructed to get them to me at once.’

  ‘For ordinary Sunday letters do you mean?’

  ‘No, for an emergency. Like this desk business.’

  ‘How’ll your secretary know they’re from me?’

  ‘You write “special” on the left hand side. She’s a very intelligent woman. She’ll get them to me all right.’

  In the cottage the children heard the news.

  ‘It’s Mum really,’ Alex explained. ‘I didn’t see how we could rearrange things, but she said she was not going to live without you any longer. We’ve taken a house in Surrey. Mum will be there every night and I shall come down most nights.’

  The children could not ask questions fast enough. In the end a picture grew. It was a modern house in a big garden. Most of the furniture from London was being moved. There was a dear little bedroom for Laurel, and a big room for Tony and Kim. There was a barn that could be converted into a play-room. There were some alterations to be done, but even if it meant picnicking they would be there for the summer holidays.

  It was getting dark as they turned back to the house. There seemed, not only to the children but to Alex and Lena, a magic quality in the evening. The catkins and primroses glimmered through the greyness. Birds chirped. Automatically they all dropped their voices and slipped along as if a heavy footfall or overloud tone could smash something which could not be mended.

  XXI

  Tony sat on one side of Ruth, Laurel on the other. The hotel lounge was empty, for the stringency of the times made parents’ week-end visits difficult.

  Neither Lena nor Alex had been down and the summer term was more than half over. That things were wrong was, of course, known to the children, but their school worlds were so set apart that real world news seemed not to refer directly to themselves. They had heard that Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland had been invaded. They were told about troops landing by parachute. They knew of the Dunkirk evacuation. That France had surrendered. There was insecurity in the air. Children who had arrived at the beginning of the term expecting to spend a normal term were suddenly snatched away to be sent to Canada, America or Australia.

  Ruth had seen neither child for more than six months. There were changes. Laurel had shot up. She was twelve now and had ceased to be a little thing. She was very much the school girl. It was hard to tell when you saw her only for a short time and that in an hotel lounge, but she seemed harder. It was probably a good thing, she had been too sensitive. The change in Tony was more difficult to define. He looked much the same and seemed the same. Yet Ruth could feel a difference. There was a faint air of truculence that was, to her, put on rather than indigenous to Tony.

  Ruth explained why she had come to see them. Kim was old enough for school and Tuesday’s lessons would not matter for a while yet. She felt she ought to be doing something more.

  ‘I’m going to be what Kim calls a lady-soldier.’ They stared at her with a stunned appearance. ‘Don’t look like that, darlings. I shall be seeing you, I shall get leave.’

  ‘It won’t be the same thing,’ said Tony. ‘Except for last holidays you’ve always been there.’

  Ruth found a large sheet of paper and drew a map of Europe. She explained quietly but quite clearly what might be going to happen. How near the Germans were.

  Tony banged his fist on the arm of the sofa beside her. ‘Let them come. We’ll murder them, there won’t be one left alive.’

  Alex and Lena arrived on a week-day in July. They brought food and there was a picnic in a wood. Before they came the children had realised that there was to be no house outside London that summer. Alex had broken it to them by degrees in letters. It had not been definite but more than a hint. On this visit he was perfectly clear.

  ‘I wish you could come. You’ve no idea how exciting it is, dog-fights overhead all day long. Mum’s got a crick in her neck from looking at the sky. But it’s no place for children.’

  Tony fought.

  ‘Why not? People don’t get killed, do they?’

  Alex shook his head.

  ‘No, but of course you never know. Can’t have a whole lot of Spitfires having a battle over your head and none of them ever come down. The sirens go day and night.’

  Tony continued to plead.

  ‘We wouldn’t mind. Honestly, we’d like it, wouldn’t we, Laurel? And you did promise.’

  Laurel did not answer. She could see from Alex’s expression argument was hopeless.

  Alex chose his words carefully.

  ‘I know I promised but you’ve got to think of your mother and me. We wouldn’t have a minute’s peace. You understand, don’t you, Laurel?’

  Laurel picked up a fir needle and seemed to examine it.

  ‘You’ve moved the furniture so we shall go there presently.’

  Lena knew just how Laurel was feeling.

  ‘Everything. Except just enough for Dad and me for an odd night or two. He can’t always get down.’

  Tony fixed his eyes trustingly on Alex.

  ‘Then if we’ve beaten the Germans by Christmas can we come to the new house then?’

  Alex’s eyes did not leave Tony’s.

  ‘We shan’t have, old man.’

  They left the subject of the house after that. Alex told them a little of what was going on in the world outside their school grounds. The road blocks, the barbed wire and the sign posts coming down.

  Laurel said:

  ‘What happens to us if the Germans land?’

  Alex spoke calmly.

  ‘Mum and I have made plans. We plan to have you with us in the new house. But I can’t promise anything. It depends if we’re allowed to move about.’

  The landing of the Germans was remote, the presence of Alex and Lena and the picnic was happening. Laurel gave Lena’s hand a squeeze.

  ‘One thing I’m awfully glad about and that is you haven’t sent us to Mum’s Mum in America.’

  Alex avoided Lena’s eyes.

  ‘I don’t believe in running away when the enemy’s in sight.’

  Lena went on eating. She appeared not to have heard what had been said. She thought, as she had her mother in America, it was lunacy not to send the children to her. She had been unable to shake Alex. It was as near a bad quarrel as they had ever had.

  ‘Lots of our
chaps have gone,’ said Tony.

  Alex realised he had, because he wanted to speak clearly, been tactless.

  ‘And probably very sensible in their cases. It was our point of view I was talking about. Everybody has to do what they think right for their own children.’

  Lena was in an overwrought state. She had attained happiness. It had been a delicate matter to so balance her life that it reached near perfection, but with skill she had managed it. The war had no use for delicate adjustments, it had torn most of her happiness to pieces. The home, with its full nurseries and schoolroom, its charm, its happy, well-trained staff, was gone. It had hurt pulling the London house to pieces to make the new country home, but it had been necessary. She needed to be the centre piece of a home and she had worked hard to put her stamp on the new place. The appalling war situation had swept over her and she had felt as if she were a piece of jetsam bashed by the tide. What had she now? A bedroom in London. An almost unlived-in home in the country. She never saw her children and Alex only very early in the morning or late at night. There was something gained in that Alex was, during the little she had of him, more the Alex who had fallen in love with her than Alex the father. Life was so precarious it made even Alex snatch at happiness and depend on her. Against that were the hours she was alone. She was terrified. She tried to fill her time working when in London in a canteen and when in the country, in the garden, but work could not numb her mind. In the country sirens screamed and battles went on overhead all day. In London there were sirens and guns and ever-growing expectance of something worse. What if the Germans landed? What if there were bombs? To love and be loved, to have a nice home and clothes, and a good time were her weapons against the ordinary dangers of life. She was defenceless now. She had lost the ability to relax. This picnic was making her jumpy. The children and Alex looked so contented and unconcerned. She got up.

  ‘If everybody’s finished let’s put the stuff back in the car and go for a walk.’

  Alex lit a cigarette.

  ‘It’s too hot. What d’you two say?’

  Tony turned to stare at his mother.

  ‘Do you know that’s the very first time I remember hearing you want to walk. It’s always been us that did and you who wanted to sit in the shade.’

  Lena with difficulty held herself back from snapping at him.

  ‘Well, I’ve changed. Come on everybody.’

  Alex pointed at the food.

  ‘Pack up, kids. If Mum says we’re going to walk we’re going to walk.’

  They found a shady path through the wood. There were wild strawberries in a ditch. They found a honeysuckle with such giant flowers they picked some to send to Elsa, because it was even finer than the one that climbed on her summerhouse. Dog roses sprayed over the hedges. Bees droned, everything was white with dust. They could not have chosen a quieter, more sleepy summer lane. It was, therefore, a shock to turn a corner and be met by a sentry with a fixed bayonet. He was not even a friendly sentry. He looked grim and told them to turn back, they were allowed no further.

  ‘What was he guarding?’ Tony asked in a whisper. Alex shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘No knowing. Might be anything.’

  To both Laurel and Tony that sentry was the most memorable part of the day. He left them excited and yet with a cold feeling in their stomachs. Anything might happen in a world where sentries turned you back in country lanes. Before, war at home was hearsay, now it was real. It was as surprising as if the ground under their feet had begun to shake, or cats had voices and could talk.

  XXII

  There was urgency and abnormality in the air. The Colonel was out all day training men to be Home Guards. In the early morning and late at night he and Sims worked in the loft cleaning bombs and rifles and making Molotov cocktails. The cook had left to cook for a factory and the parlourmaid had become cook. Elsa and the housemaid did all the housework. With Ruth away there was no one to interfere with the children, Laurel, Tony and Kim roved the countryside, getting wild and out of hand and nobody seemed to care. Every grown-up appeared to be listening, their ears so strained that they did not hear ordinary sounds like loud voices, shouts and slamming doors.

  Suddenly Albert and Ernie were back. Mr. Parker had been in the Army since April, the school the boys should have attended had been evacuated. Mrs. Parker, with the boys on the loose all day and no Mr. Parker to help her, had lost control of them. Albert was leader of a gang.

  ‘Near on thirty of us there is. Smashin’ time we ’ave. Get up when we like. Till the bombs came we’d stop up ’alf of the night.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Coo, you wouldn’t believe the ’alf of it. Took thin’s what was left about and swops’m. One day we collected more’n seventy lights out of shelters.’

  Tony was impressed.

  ‘Don’t the police mind?’

  ‘Coppers!’ Albert gave Ernie a nudge. ‘’Ark at ’im! Scared stiff of us, they are. One of ’em come to Mum about me. She said, “You speak to ’im for ’e’s tot’lly unmanageable.” ’

  Laurel, Tony and Kim gazed at Albert with awe.

  ‘But you can’t be,’ said Laurel. ‘You’re only just ten.’

  Albert spat. A habit he had picked up.

  ‘What’s age? I calls out me gang and I tells ’em I’m expectin’ the coppers, and they all get themselves a bit of glass or a stone. Did ’e come? Not ’im, ’e knew when ’e was well off.’

  Laurel asked:

  ‘Wasn’t it dark in the shelters without any lights?’

  Albert gave Ernie another nudge.

  ‘’Ark at ’er! Of course they ’ad lights. The wardens ’ad to put ’em back. People would create something shocking if there wasn’t no lights.’

  Ernie was proud of Albert.

  ‘Show ’em ’ow a bomb sounds comin’ down, Albert. Go on, show ’em.’

  Albert and Ernie had pockets full of fragments of shell cases. They pooled this for Albert’s display.

  ‘Need some glass really to get the proper noise,’ Albert pointed out. ‘Now, you listen.’

  He gave a remarkably realistic performance of the scream of an approaching bomb. At the finish he and Ernie threw the shell fragments on to the floor.

  ‘O’ course it’s nothing like really,’ Albert explained. ‘You want to hear great chunks coming down. Ernie and me ’eard a ’ole polytechnic coming down, didn’t we, Ernie? Went to look at it next mornin’. Coo!’

  The three Wiltshires hung on every word.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was early and there was smoke still curlin’ up but there wasn’t much to see. That was one of the places what they give up.’

  Tony was fingering a shell fragment.

  ‘How do you mean, give up?’

  Albert tried to sound authoritative.

  ‘Couldn’t do nothing, see? Great ’uge place, size of Buckingham Palace fallen in on ’o’s in the cellar.’ He lowered his voice. ‘In our shelter that night they said that you could ’ear tappin’ and that they’d go on tappin’ and tappin’ until they was dead.’

  Tony raised a startled face.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone dig for them? Couldn’t you make a hole and pull them out?’

  Albert, uncertain of his facts, was truculent.

  ‘I’m tellin’ you, aren’t I? Not in a big building like the polytechnic. Of course they get ’em out when it’s a little buildin’. They puts up a great piece of tarpaulin and you aren’t supposed to see nothin’, but Ernie and me ’ave seen, ’aven’t we, Ernie?’

  Albert and Ernie had disliked the country before. Now, after the glories of gangsterism in London, they were appalled at its dullness. It was the day they were taken to see the cottage that they broke out.

  ‘Wot’s the good of it?’

  ‘I’ll show you wot we’d do with it.’

  Albert threw a stone. It cracked through the glass in the window
. Ernie climbed on to the window ledge and pulled at a tile. Several slid off the roof. There was a second when the Wiltshire children were about to stop them, then suddenly they joined in. It was an orgy of smashing. All the pent-up excitement of the world around them came out. All the whispers and grown-up waiting for something to happen. All the disbelief in the ordinary world. Nothing was left. Everything that could be torn down or smashed was ruined.

  ‘Now I’ll show you ’ow we finish it off,’ said Albert. ‘We’ll give it a nice wash down.’

  He undid his fly buttons. The other boys followed suit. Laurel leant against the wall watching them, shrieking with laughter.

  XXIII

  ‘Don’t let the children know.’ ‘Such a stupid woman to have them back.’ ‘Their poor father. I’m sure he would never have allowed it.’ ‘She may live but the boys were killed outright.’

  There was snow. The children had got out the toboggans. There was ice. They skated better this year. It was rough on the ice for all the child evacuees of the neighbourhood were there. They had no skates but they made slides and knocked the skaters down. Sometimes Elsa and her friends came to watch. Elsa would call the children over to introduce them. Once or twice one of Elsa’s friends would catch hold of her evacuee and introduce it. ‘This is Violet. This is George.’ Someone who did not know about Albert and Ernie would ask Elsa if she had children billeted on her. There would be a pause and exchanged looks. Laurel, Tony and Kim would get back on the ice, pushing each other, screaming with laughter. Anything to ward off the terror of what they knew had happened being put into words. Grown-up wallowing in things. Amongst themselves Albert and Ernie might never have existed, for none of them mentioned them.

  ‘Queer children are, they never ask when the boys are coming back though they knew they only went home for Christmas.’ ‘Such a mercy they don’t ask. It’s splendid when you can shield children from suffering.’

  XXIV

  It was the first day of the holidays. Laurel and Tony were in the garden. Laurel asked:

  ‘How did Kim get on?’