Nine days. On June 3, a Monday, the operation ceased. By means of inspired organisation and improvisation, to say nothing of individual acts of enormous personal courage, over three hundred thousand troops had been rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk, and ferried home to England and safety. The entire country gave thanks, but forty thousand men had been left behind, to spend the next five years as prisoners of war.
But the Fifty-first Highland Division were not at Dunkirk. This division, including battalions of the Black Watch, the Argylls, the Seaforths, the Camerons and the Gordons, still remained in France, to fight on alongside all that remained of a disheartened French Army. But it was a losing battle. Each morning, the English newspapers showed the sinister, thrusting arrows of the unstoppable German advance, and it was frighteningly clear that it would be only a matter of days before this last courageous remnant of the British Army was driven to the coast.
Finally, St Valéry en Caux, and they could go no farther. Fog precluded rescue by sea, and the battle-weary battalions were surrounded — trapped by the overwhelming might of the German Panzer divisions. On 10 June the French Corps capitulated, and hours later all that remained of the Highland Division followed suit. Later, disarmed, they were permitted to march past their general, and, in the rain, gave him eyes right. They marched on, into captivity. The Black Watch, the Argylls, the Seaforths, the Camerons, the Gordons. Gus.
Afterwards, in retrospect, Judith was always to remember the war as being a bit like a long journey in an aeroplane…hours of boredom interspersed with flashes of pure terror. The boredom was perfectly natural. It was not humanly possible for any person to live through six years of war in the top gear of passionate involvement. But the fear, and the immediacy of that fear, were natural too, and during the dark days of Dunkirk and the fall of France, Judith, and just about everybody else in the country, existed on the tenterhooks of anxiety and suspense.
At The Dower House, the wireless on the kitchen dresser was kept on all through the day, burbling away to itself from early morning to late at night, in order that no single bulletin nor news flash should be missed. In the evenings, Judith, Biddy and Phyllis all gathered around the wireless in the sitting-room and listened, together, to the nine o'clock news.
As the cloudless early-summer days crawled by, despair was replaced by cautious hope, and then — as the extraordinary operation proceeded according to plan — by thankfulness and pride, and finally, intense relief. A relief that flowered into a sort of triumph. The men were home. They had returned with nothing but rifles and bayonets and some machine guns. Behind them lay, abandoned, massive amounts of equipment. Guns, tanks, and motor vehicles, much of which had been destroyed, along with petrol tanks and oil stores, in the smoking knackers yard which was still all that remained of Le Havre.
But the men were home.
Gradually, in dribs and drabs, came news of those who had been rescued, and who had been left behind in France. Palmer, the erstwhile Nancherrow gardener-cum-chauffeur, had made it. As had Joe Warren and his friend Rob Padlow.
Jane Pearson telephoned Athena from London with the glad tidings that Alistair Pearson was safe, hauled out of the sea by a burly yachtsman, warmed by a tot of the best French brandy, and delivered ashore at Cowes. For Alistair, it seemed a suitably civilised conclusion to his adventures. But the Lord Lieutenant's son had been wounded, and was in hospital in Bristol, and Mrs Mudge's nephew, and Charlie Lanyon, Heather Warren's friend, were both posted missing, presumed killed.
But, most personal and important of all — for Diana and Edgar Carey-Lewis, for Athena and Loveday and Mary Millyway and the Nettlebeds and Judith — Edward Carey-Lewis had survived, his fighter squadron having flown successive patrols over the mayhem of Dunkirk, scattering the formations of German bombers, and driving them away from the beleaguered beaches.
From time to time, all through those tense and anxious days, if he could grab the chance and get a clear line, Edward telephoned home, simply to tell his family that he was still alive, and very often his voice was high with the excitement of a sortie only just completed.
As for Gus, after St Valéry, all hope was lost for Gus. Gus was gone, with his Regiment, into eclipse. They all prayed that he was alive and had been taken prisoner, but so many of the Highland Division had been killed during the ferocious fighting that preceded St Valéry, that this alternative seemed only too likely. For Loveday's sake, brave faces were worn, but she was heartbroken, and refused to be comforted.
‘The great thing to do,’ said Mrs Mudge, ‘is to keep busy. Least, that's what people say, but it's easier said than done, isn't it? I mean, how can I say that to my poor sister, when she's sitting there worrying herself sick over whether her boy's dead or alive? Missing believed killed, indeed! What a bit of news for the poor soul to get in a telegram. And there wasn't no one in the house with her, her husband was up St Austell market, and only the telegram boy there to make her a cup of tea.’
Loveday had never seen Mrs Mudge so down. Disaster, death, sickness, operations, and fatal accidents were usually the breath of life to her, incidents to be imparted to others, and chewed over with much relish. But this, Loveday supposed, was different. This wasn't young Bob Rogers from over St Austell way, who'd cut his fingers off in the turnip-chopper, nor old Mrs Tyson who'd been found dead in a ditch on her way home from the Mothers' Union, but Mrs Mudge's own flesh and blood, and her sister's only son.
‘I feel I should go and be with her for a few days. Just for company. She's got daughters, living up-country, but there isn't nothing like a sister, is there? Talk about old days, you can, with a sister. Her daughters are that flighty, all they talk about is film stars and clothes.’
‘Then why don't you go, Mrs Mudge?’
‘How can I? Got the cows to milk and the dairy to see to. And the haymaking will be starting in a week or two, and that'll mean trips out to the fields with the tea-bottle and Lord knows how many extra mouths to feed. Hopeless, it is.’
‘Where does your sister live?’
‘Her husband's got a farm up the back of St Veryan. Back's the word. Back of beyond, I'd say. A bus once a week if you're lucky. Don't know how she stands it. Never did.’
It was half past ten in the morning, and they were sitting at the kitchen table at Lidgey and drinking tea. Helping Walter and his father on the farm, learning to cope with the balky tractor, feeding the poultry and now the pigs (a new acquisition, bought at Penzance market with an eye to bacon rashers), Loveday necessarily spent much of her days at Lidgey. But, just lately, since the black tidings of St Valéry had broken, she had taken to escaping here on the smallest excuse, and sometimes with no excuse at all. For some reason, she found the down-to-earth company of Mrs Mudge more comforting even than the loving sympathy of her mother, Mary, and Athena. Everybody at Nancherrow was being almost unbearably understanding and sweet, but the thing was, that while trying to come to terms with the fact that Gus was dead, and that she would never see him again, all she wanted to do was to be able to talk about him as though he wasn't dead. As though he were still alive. Mrs Mudge was good at this. Over and over again she had said, ‘Mind you, he might have been taken prisoner,’ and Loveday was able to say the same thing to Mrs Mudge, about Mrs Mudge's nephew. ‘We don't know that he's dead. There must have been such dreadful battles. How can anybody be sure?’
Thus they consoled each other.
Mrs Mudge had finished her tea. She pulled herself wearily to her feet, went to the range, and poured herself another cup from her huge brown teapot. Loveday looked at her back view, and thought that Mrs Mudge had lost her bounce. Family instincts were running strong, and she clearly yearned to be with her sister. Something must be done. Loveday's inbred Carey-Lewis sense of responsibility, along with her natural bossiness, rose to the fore. By the time Mrs Mudge had sat down again, Loveday had made up her mind.
She said firmly, ‘You must go to St Veryan now. Today. For a week, if necessary. Before the haymaking st
arts.’
Mrs Mudge looked as though she thought Loveday had gone mad. ‘You're talking some silly.’
‘I'm not talking silly. I can do the milking. Walter can help me, and I'll do the milking.’
‘You?’
‘Yes. Me. Farming's meant to be my war-work. And I can milk. You showed me how when I was little. I may be a bit slow, but I'll soon get the hang of it.’
‘You could never do it, Loveday. We start at six in the morning.’
‘I can get up. I can get up at half past five. If Walter can get the cows into the milking parlour for me, then I'll be here at six to start work.’
‘It's not just mornings, it's evenings too.’
‘It's no problem.’
‘Then there's the churns to be cleaned and taken up the lane for the milk-marketing lorry. Eight o'clock in the morning he comes, and doesn't like to be kept waiting.’
‘I won't keep him waiting.’ Mrs Mudge gazed dubiously at Loveday. She was clearly torn between the desire to be at her bereaved sister's side, and a certain discomfiture at the notion that she was not indispensable. ‘You'll have to clean up after you,’ she warned. ‘Walter won't do that for you. That's not men's work. And I'm not coming home to a mucky parlour and dirty churns.’
‘I promise. You won't. Oh, do let me, Mrs Mudge. Please. You've just said that the great thing to do is keep busy, and I'm just as miserable and worried as your sister is. I lie awake at night and think about Gus, so I might just as well get up a five o'clock and do something. So if you go to her, you'll be helping both of us.’
‘You mustn't think I think less of Gus than I do of my nephew. Lovely young man, Gus was. Remember that day when he came up to paint a picture of my barn? Chicken mess and manure all over the place, and he never turned a hair.’
‘Telephone your sister and tell her you're coming. Mr Mudge can drive you over to St Veryan this evening, and you can stay just as long as you think you're needed.’
Mrs Mudge shook her head in wonder. ‘I don't know, Loveday, you'll be the death of me. Full of surprises. I never thought of you as being so thoughtful…’
‘I'm not thoughtful, Mrs Mudge, I'm selfish. I probably wouldn't do anything if I didn't think I was going to get something out of it.’
‘You're belittling yourself.’
‘No, I'm not. I'm being honest.’
‘That's what you say,’ Mrs Mudge retorted. ‘Others are allowed to say different.’
Each morning, at half past eight in the morning, after she had taken the full churns up to the end of the lane, delivered them to the milk-marketing lorry and brought the empty churns back to the dairy, Loveday walked home to Nancherrow, ravenously hungry, for her breakfast.
It was now the eighteenth of June. Mrs Mudge had been away for five days, and was returning to Lidgey tomorrow. In a way, Loveday felt rather sorry, Coping with the milking, a marathon task that she had taken on so impetuously, had proved to be something of a challenge and tremendously hard work. At first, she had been both slow and clumsy (nerves), but Walter, alternately swearing at her, or handing out a bit of foul-mouthed encouragement, (‘If you wait, I'll show you how to shift that bloody churn’) had been uncharacteristically co-operative, and had seen her through.
Without a lot of chat. Walter was a taciturn fellow. Loveday was not sure if he had been told about Gus. Knowing Mrs Mudge, she was pretty certain that he had. Whatever, Walter said nothing, and offered no sort of sympathy. When Gus was staying at Nancherrow, the two young men had met one morning down at the stables, and Loveday had introduced them, but Walter had been at his most offhand, the very epitome of a mannerless groom, and Gus, after one or two friendly overtures, lost heart. It had occurred to Loveday at the time that perhaps Walter was jealous, but the idea was so preposterous that she almost immediately put it out of her mind. Walter was a law unto himself, but she had known him all her life and never felt anything but at ease in his company.
Each evening, when the last cow had been milked and the little herd turned out into the fields again, Loveday had set to work, hosing and scrubbing the parlour, taking pride in shining cobbles and pristine milk-pails, determined that Mrs Mudge, returning, would be able to find no fault. The Lidgey kitchen, on the other hand, was a pigsty of dirty dishes, blackened saucepans, and unwashed clothes. Perhaps, tomorrow, she would find time to muck that out as well. It seemed the least she could do for poor Mrs Mudge.
She crossed the farmyard and climbed the gate that led into the lane, and sat there for a bit, on the top of the rail, because this was one of her favourite views, and this morning looked particularly bright and sparkling. Earlier, as she had walked to work, all had lain dew-spangled and tranquil beneath the first low rays of the rising sun. Even the sea, shifting gently, unruffled by wind, had turned from grey to the translucence of mother-of-pearl. Now, however, three hours later, it was a silky blue beneath a cloudless sky. A breeze had got up, and she could hear the distant sound of breakers, rolling in at the foot of the cliffs. Gulls were flying high. In the sunlight, the moors were tawny, and pasture fields a brilliant emerald green. She saw the peaceful, grazing cows, and, from far off, heard the furious barking of Walter's dog.
Her mind, curiously, emptied. She hadn't thought about nothing for ages, and it felt rather pleasant, like being in limbo, floating in space between two worlds. And then, gradually, the vacuum of mindlessness was filled with the image of Gus, striding up the lane towards her with his painting gear slung in a knapsack over his shoulder. And she thought of him now, in France, and he was walking, or marching, or wounded, but he wasn't dead. His vital presence came across so strongly that, all at once, she was consumed with excitement, the irrefutable conviction that he was still alive. At that very moment, he was thinking about her; she could almost hear his voice, humming towards her as though transposed by unseen telephone wires. She closed her eyes in a sort of ecstasy, and sat, clinging with her hands to the top rail of the old farm gate. And when she opened her eyes again, everything was different, and she wasn't even tired any longer, and all the lovely world was brimful with the old possibilities of happiness.
She jumped off the gate and ran down the lane, her legs going faster as the slope steepened, her gumboots thumping like pistons over the loose stones and ruts of dried mud. At the bottom, she vaulted over the second gate, and then, breathless and suffering from an agonising stitch in her ribs, had to stop and kiss her knee, which was the classic remedy for stitches. Then, along the path, and across the drive, and into the yard, and through the back door.
‘Take your boots off, Loveday, they're caked with dirt.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Nettlebed.’
‘You're late today. Busy were you?’
‘Not particularly. Just hanging around.’ In socked feet, she came into the kitchen. She wanted to ask if there had been any news, if there was a letter, if anybody had heard anything, but if she did this, then Mrs Nettlebed and everybody would start asking questions. And until there came some sort of confirmation of Gus's safety, Loveday was not going to whisper a word of her new hope, not to anybody, not even Judith.
She said, ‘What's for breakfast? I'm ravenous.’
‘Fried eggs and tomatoes. On the hotplate in the dining-room. Everyone else has finished already. You'd better hurry along and let Nettlebed get cleared up.’
So Loveday washed her hands in the scullery and dried them on the roller towel that hung behind the door, and then went out of the kitchen and down the passage. From upstairs came the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and her mother's voice calling Mary. The dining-room door stood open, and she was just about to go through when the telephone began to ring. She stopped dead, and waited, and then, when nobody answered, went on and into her father's study. The room was empty. The telephone, shrilling, stood on his desk. She picked it up and the ringing was stopped.
‘Nancherrow.’ For some reason, her mouth had gone dry. She cleared her throat and said it again. ‘Nancherrow.’
Click, click, went the telephone, and then started buzzing.
‘Hello?’ She was beginning to sound a bit desperate.
‘Who's that?’ A man's voice, blurred and distant.
‘Loveday.’
‘Loveday. It's me. It's Gus.’
Her legs, literally, turned to water. She couldn't stand, so she collapsed onto the floor, taking the telephone with her.
‘Gus.’
‘Can you hear me? This is a ghastly line. I can only talk for a moment or two.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In hospital.’
‘Where?’
‘Southampton. I'm okay. Being shipped home tomorrow. I tried to ring before but everybody's in the same boat and there aren't enough telephones.’
‘But…what…what happened? Are you badly hurt?’
‘Just my leg. I'm okay. On crutches, but all right.’
‘I knew you were safe. I suddenly knew…’
‘There's no time for more. I just wanted to speak to you. I'll write.’
‘Do that, and I'll write too. What's your address…?’
‘It's…’
But before he could tell her, the line went dead. ‘Gus? Gus?’ She jiggled the hook on the receiver and tried again. ‘Gus?’ But it was no good. He was gone.
Reaching up, she put the telephone back on the table. Still sitting on the thick Turkey carpet, she laid her head against the cool, dark, polished wood of her father's desk and closed her eyes against the tears, but they streamed out, quite quietly, pouring down her cheeks. She said aloud, ‘Thank you,’ and was not quite sure whom she was thanking. She said, ‘I knew you were alive. I knew you were going to be in touch.’ And this time she was talking to Gus.