Victory

  “Italy?” Molly says.

  “Just three days,” Carl says. “Want to bring me the burgers?” He takes the tray from her, and yells over her head, “Out of the water, guys! Chow time!”

  By the time Carl has cooked eight glossy hamburgers and turkey burgers, replacing them on the grill with ears of corn, Russell and Jack are in shorts and T-shirts, loading their plates with potato salad and green beans. Jack is a tall, chunky, confident boy with a very short summer crew cut; his fleshy, sun-reddened neck looks like the chin of a fat man who has forgotten to shave. He helps himself to two hamburgers, and his hand hovers doubtfully over the jar of green tomato chutney. “What’s this?” he demands.

  “Tomato chutney,” says Molly, hostile. “My granny made it.”

  Jack reaches for the mustard. “Tomatoes are red, kid,” he says.

  “Not in England,” says Russell amiably. He squeezes ketchup over his hamburger bun. “It rains a lot in England. Everything stays green. I thought you said you’d been there?”

  “I was young,” Jack says through a mouthful. “Mostly I remember the pigeons. In that square in London with the dude on top of a pole. I remember feeding the pigeons. They pooped on everything, including the dude on the pole. They sat on his head. Pooping pigeons. Super-pooping pigeons.” He snorts with laughter. So does Russell.

  Kate is sitting cross-legged on the ground, eating green beans with her fingers. She says tolerantly, “You’re such a poet, Jack.”

  “It’s not a pole, it’s made of stone,” Molly says. “Nelson’s Column.” She is suddenly overcome by a great wave of homesickness. Her mind fills with Trafalgar Square and its wheeling clouds of pigeons, and Merton Square with its garden of grass and trees, and her eyes fill with tears.

  “Super-poopers,” says Jack, and he and Russell fall about with silly laughter.

  It is the next day, and for a treat, Carl has driven his family north on the thunderous highway, weaving his way around enormous speeding trucks; an hour’s drive, to Mystic Seaport. He wants to show Kate and Molly one of the showpieces of the state in which he grew up, and he and Russell love the place anyway, because it is focused on the sea.

  But although the sky is blue when they leave, clouds start to close in as they drive north. It is a grey day when they arrive at Mystic. Donald, who always falls asleep in the car, is woken up and transferred from his car-seat to his stroller, and Carl shepherds his little group toward the Visitor Center. Rain begins gently to fall. Raincoat hoods are pulled up. Then suddenly the rain becomes much harder, and instinctively everyone looks around for refuge. Russell points to a café across the street.

  But Molly finds herself gripped suddenly by an extraordinary wave of emotion. She stops stock-still; it is as if someone, somewhere, has urgently called her name. She looks up, and sees next to her the door of a shop. It is a bookshop, with its name painted on the glass door: SHIPS AND THE SEA—and she knows, without question or reason, that she has to go inside.

  “Let’s go in here!” she calls, and there is such confidence in her voice that nobody finds the urge to disagree. They join her. Molly reaches for the old-fashioned brass handle of the door and in they all go.

  A small grey-haired man is sitting at a desk on the right-hand side of the shop, just inside the door. He looks up in pleased surprise at the sight of five people tumbling in, even though one of them is a baby. “Good afternoon,” he says.

  “Hi,” says Carl. Kate smiles, and Donald gives a loud friendly squawk.

  The grey-haired man pushes back his chair and stands up. He is very small indeed, Molly sees; barely as tall as she is herself. He says, “Looking for anything in particular?”

  His voice sounds English, Molly notices with surprise and approval. She looks at him uncertainly. There seems nothing about him that could have given her that unsettling sense of being summoned.

  Carl says, “Just browsing, I guess.” He grins. “And keeping out of the rain.”

  “Rain is the shopkeeper’s friend,” says the man cheerfully.

  Russell says, “Do you have books about sailboats?”

  “Can a fish swim?” says the grey-haired man. He smiles at Russell to show that he is not mocking him, and he points. “History of sail is on that wall, along with steam and powerboats. Picture books on that big table. Technical books on sailing in the back room, left-hand side. Old copies of sailing magazines too.” Having started this recital, he clearly decides he might as well keep going. He points in a different direction, past a large standing globe. “Oceanography over there. Marine biology. Naval history in the side room, over there on the right.”

  Carl and Russell drift away, peering at the shelves.

  Kate says tentatively, “Any children’s books, perhaps?”

  “The whole right wall of the naval history room, don’t ask me why,” says the man. He looks more carefully at Kate. “What part of England are you from?”

  Kate laughs, and moves Donald’s stroller sideways just before he can grab at a rack of maps. “London,” she says. “And you?”

  Molly thinks: we are all members of a secret society.

  “Portsmouth,” he says. “A very long time ago. Alan Waterford, at your service.”

  Donald stretches out a hand for the maps, finds he can’t reach them, and lets out an angry shriek. Molly squats beside his stroller to distract him, but he will not be distracted; he bellows, and tears spill from his eyes and run down his small face, which has turned bright red.

  “He’s hungry, I expect,” Kate says. “I brought a bottle.” She extracts her squalling son from the stroller and looks hesitantly at the grey-haired bookseller. “Mr. Waterford—I didn’t come in here to feed my baby, but could I tuck myself discreetly in a corner for fifteen minutes?”

  “Be my guest,” says Mr. Waterford, and Kate carries Donald away into the naval history room. Molly turns the pages of an enormous book of photographs called The Sea, and is unsettled by pictures of huge angry waves, and a small boat fighting its way through a green blur of storm. She feels depressed by the prospect of spending her whole life as part of a passionately nautical family.

  Russell comes wandering out of the naval history room and crosses to join his father at the technical sailing shelves. Molly goes in to join her mother. She is sitting in a corner with Donald, who is sucking at his bottle with furious concentration.

  “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Kate says cheerfully.

  Molly laughs, and moves along the shelves, which seem to be filled with accounts of battles and naval campaigns. She is not much interested in battles. But propped up against the books on one shelf she sees two small picture-frames, and in one of them there is a drawing of Nelson’s Column, and the great bronze lions that guard its base.

  “Oh look, Mum,” she says. “Trafalgar Square.” She shows Kate the picture.

  Kate studies it. “No pigeons,” she says.

  “That Jack is a pain,” says Molly. She peers at the other picture. It shows Lord Nelson dying at the Battle of Trafalgar, amongst a group of men aboard HMS Victory. All the books on the shelf behind it seem to be about Nelson. She stares at them. That sense of some powerful unknown emotion clutches at her again.

  She puts the Trafalgar Square picture back in its place. There is a sudden crack of thunder from outside, and she jumps. Very slowly, almost of its own accord, her hand moves across the shelf to a book.

  Yes, says a soundless voice in her head.

  Nervously, she takes the book off the shelf. It is called The Life of Nelson, and is written by Robert Southey. It is an old, battered-looking book, with a faded navy-blue cover, but there is a handsome picture of Nelson inside, and Molly finds she likes it very much. She suddenly feels she absolutely must have this book.

  “Mum?” she says to Kate. “Can I buy a book?”

  “Depends what it costs,” Kate says.

  Molly looks inside The Life of Nelson but can see no price written there. She carries the
book into the main part of the shop. Nobody is there but Mr. Waterford, back at his desk, bent over a pile of papers. Thunder is rumbling outside in a long murmur, and the day has grown dark; the lights in the shop seem much brighter now.

  “Mr. Waterford?” she says. “Please, how much is this book?”

  He looks up from his papers, startled, and for a moment does not see her. She has the feeling that inside his head he was a long, long way away, and is having trouble coming back. Being a reader, Molly knows such feelings well; she has often been so deep in the world of a book that she has ignored summonses back to the life of everyday, for something as boring and irrelevant as homework or lunch.

  She crosses to Mr. Waterford’s desk and puts the book down in front of him. Now that she is closer, she sees that he is not so very old, in spite of the grey hair—not nearly as old as her grandfather back in London. Mr. Waterford’s face is not much lined; it is almost boyish, and yet somehow wise, as if he knows far more than anyone else she has ever met.

  He runs a finger along the cover of the book, almost as if he were testing it in some way. Then he opens it. “Ah,” he says. “Southey.”

  “How much does it cost, please?” Molly says.

  “Are you interested in Horatio Nelson?” says Mr. Waterford. He looks over his half-glasses at her; his eyes are grey, like his hair. Odd, pale eyes.

  Molly does not know how to describe her sudden passionate determination to own this book. “He reminds me of home,” she says.

  “Ah,” says Mr. Waterford. “I understand.” And she feels that he does. But he says, “This isn’t the best biography, you know. There are several modern ones that are much more readable. More objective, too.”

  Molly will not be budged. “I like this one,” she says.

  “Well,” says Mr. Waterford. He looks at the front pages of the book. “Eighteen hundred and ninety-seven. Heinemann edition. Twenty-five dollars.”

  “Oh,” says Molly in dismay.

  “But not in good condition,” Mr. Waterford says, as if he were talking to himself. “Nor in great demand. Five dollars, I think.”

  “Thank you!” says Molly, brightening.

  “Do you have five dollars?” Mr. Waterford asks her.

  “Oh yes,” says Molly. “At least, if Mum will advance me my pocket money. She will, I know she will.”

  “What is your name?” Mr. Waterford asks her.

  “Molly. Molly Jennings.”

  She finds she can’t stop looking at the light grey eyes; they hold her, like hands. Mr. Waterford says, “I tell you what, Molly, you can have Lord Nelson for two dollars. I think you are the right person for this book.” And he hands it to her.

  The wet street outside gleams white for an instant as lightning flashes in the sky above, and thunder rumbles again, but more gently. Carl and Russell emerge from some far recess, each carrying two books, and Kate comes out of the naval history room with a docile contented Donald in her arms. In her hand she has an old copy of Hardie Gramatky’s Little Toot.

  Carl pays for all the books, including Molly’s. “I think I can afford that, honey,” he tells her amiably. Molly wonders if the price should go back to twenty-five dollars if Carl is paying for it, and she glances enquiringly at Mr. Waterford.

  But Mr. Waterford just smiles and tucks a bookmark in the book, his grey eyes hidden again now behind the glasses, and they leave his shop. Outside, the rain is falling steadily and the wind has picked up. Carl decides to postpone their exploration of Mystic Seaport’s historical ships to another day. They make their way to their car. Donald falls asleep in his stroller, and wakes up only for long enough to be strapped into his car-seat, and falls asleep again.

  Molly and Russell sit in the backseat beside him. Russell flips through his books as they drive, and then looks curiously at Molly.

  “Everything okay?” he says.

  “Uh,” Molly says. “I might have gone sideways for a bit. But yes, I’m okay.” And in a little while she too falls asleep, with her Life of Nelson on her lap, and she dreams a dream that she does not remember afterward, just as most of us do not remember many of our dreams.

  Sam

  JANUARY 1803

  I never had any thought of joining the navy, until after that day my uncle came.

  I was eleven years old, though I looked older, being tall and sturdy for my age. The Lord knows why that should have been so; we never had enough to eat. There were five of us children. All our lives we had lived in a cottage on the lands of the great house, Lord Melcher’s house. In Kent, that was, in the green countryside. My father labored there. He went every day to plow or cut hay or whatever the bailiff wanted, according to season, and my mother worked sometimes in the kitchen at the great house, washing pots. Mostly though, she worked in our home for his lordship’s housekeeper, sewing, because she was good with her needle and could mend fine clothes or work with linens. When I see her in my mind, she is bent close over her sewing, beside the dim little lamp, peering to see the stitches.

  The walls of our cottage were made of wattle and daub, thick enough to keep out the wind, and the roof was of thatch, and leaked. Often my brother and I had to climb up on the thatch and stuff hay into a place where we thought the leak might be. For the seven in our family there were two rooms, one at the front for cooking and eating and the other for sleeping. The front room had the hearth, so between the two rooms there was only half a wall, to let the heat go through. All of us slept there in the back on straw mattresses, in a row: me on the end, then my three little sisters Mary, Alice and Beth, then Mam, my father and my big brother Dick.

  I took Mary and Alice to school in spring and autumn, but Beth was too young, only a baby. There was another baby to come soon; my mother’s belly was swelling again. My father was always turning to her at night, whether she wanted it or not. He would start to snore as soon as he was done. Once, afterward, I reached out across my little sisters’ heads to stroke Mam’s hair just for a moment, and she kissed my hand and I could feel that her cheek was wet.

  I hated my father. He was all shouting and hitting; there was never a kind word out of him. He worked hard, but that was the most you could say for him, in my opinion. My elder brother Dick was the same, always picking fights with me because he knew he could win. Our tiny humpbacked schoolteacher Mr. Jenkin was worth five of them, though Dick would have thrashed me if I had told him so. Mr. Jenkin said I was the best reader he had ever had, but my only sight of school now was in taking the little girls. My father said I had had more than enough schooling, and wanted me always out digging or getting firewood.

  Soon he would have me off with him and Dick to be a laborer on the farm. I was there often already, helping with the hens and the sheep, but this was a good year for catching rabbits and my father knew I was skillful at that. So he gave me time for my snares, and I skinned the rabbits and fixed the skins to a board and rubbed ashes into them, and if they were any good Mam would make us a jerkin or a hat. The most important thing was the meat; she made a stew whenever I caught a rabbit. My father and Dick always ate most of it.

  It was winter when my uncle came. Winter was the worst time, always wet and cold. However much straw we laid on the earth floor of the cottage, water came in under the door and turned the earth to mud; it was almost better when the ground froze. My mother kept a fire burning in the hearth for as much of those short days as she could manage, but you had to be close to it to be even half warm. She made broth to warm us up, if my father brought home a carrot or turnip or two from the fields. On the day I am telling you about, Dick brought home a slab of bacon that one of the cooks at the big house had given him when he delivered a sack of potatoes. She thought him a likely fellow, I dare say; girls did, sometimes. They didn’t know him the way I did.

  “Good lad!” my father said, when he smelled the bacon and heard where it came from. “That’s the kind of son to have, not one that sits sewing like a girl.”

  He meant me. Mam was hemming she
ets for the big house, and it was a lot of work so I was helping her. She’d taught me how to sew when I was a little fellow, wanting to copy whatever she did.

  “The sewing pays money,” my mother said.

  My father gave a scornful snort, and let go a great fart for good measure. He took the best seat by the fire, and Beth came climbing into his lap, not out of affection but because it was the only place to be warm.

  Then there was a man’s voice calling outside, and the door opened, and in out of the cold rain came the dripping figure of my uncle.

  I didn’t know who he was, but my mother let out the most joyful cry I had ever heard in my life.

  “Charlie!”

  She ran to him and flung her arms round him, wet jacket and all, and they stood hugging each other for a long minute while we children gaped, and my father sat unmoving by the fire.

  My mother and my uncle Charlie were brother and sister, you see. They had grown up together very close, in their big family in the town of Chatham, on the coast. But somehow my mother met my father and married him, and he took her away from Chatham to our cottage. Until this day, Mam told us, she hadn’t seen her brother Charlie for thirteen years. Certainly none of us had ever seen him before—though we knew about him from the stories Mam had always told us about her family, faraway people, separated from us by limitless time and space.

  Suddenly now one of them was real. I stared at him. He was a short, stocky man, with broad powerful shoulders and a cheerful kind of face. Like Mam and me, he had blue eyes and straight light brown hair.

  Mam told him all our names, and he nodded to each one of us, and smiled. Then Mam took the pot off the fire, and divided the soup between eight dishes instead of seven. She took a very small one for herself. I could see my father keeping a sharp eye on how much bacon went into his own dish, and Dick’s, and Charlie’s: I knew Mam had cut off and saved most of the fat bacon to use later, so only the meaty bits, which we hardly ever saw, were in the pot with the broth and potatoes.