Rule Britannia

  “Following the explosions in the Falmouth area, there have been two more, one near Camborne and a second in the clay district, a mile from Nanpean. Other disturbances have been reported from South Wales. It is believed that Celtic factions among the population are taking this opportunity of giving vent to their dissatisfaction with the Coalition Government and the formation of USUK. Elsewhere the country is quiet. The President of the United States—I beg your pardon, of USUK—gave a dinner party and reception for Her Majesty the Queen at the White House last night… Football. The match between Exeter University and Plymouth has been postponed owing to weather conditions. The next news bulletin from the southwest will be at three o’ clock.”

  Nanpean… Emma remembered that one of Terry’s friends from the technical school came from Nanpean. What was it Andy had told her last night about Terry’s friends knowing where to find gelignite? Best forget it. And anyway, Terry was not involved. That broken leg, in the long run, might save them trouble. Which, unless you could be dispassionate, was a pretty hard-hearted thing to acknowledge.

  As they got up from the table after lunch footsteps suggested that the doctor had returned.

  “Come on, let’s hear the worst.”

  Her grandmother made for the stairs leading to the hall, Emma following. Dr. Summers was already in the cloakroom, standing by the telephone. He nodded at them both.

  “The leg’s broken all right,” he said. “I’m going to have a word with Matron at the hospital. She’ll fix him up with a bed.”

  “How do we get him there?” asked Emma.

  “Leave that to me,” said the doctor. “By the way, I brought Andy back with me, he’s breathing fire and wants to get every marine on sight. Find him something to do. Hullo, Matron?”

  Emma grabbed hold of Andy and marched him through the kitchen towards the playroom.

  “Help Sam with the pigeon, he got loose,” she told him.

  “The pigeon’s not priority,” said Andy fiercely. “I’m going to sharpen my arrows.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t have archery practice this weather.”

  “Who said anything about practice? Emma, do you know the beachcomber has a shortwave radio he made himself and can get frequencies that we can’t? He was telling Terry and me all about it, after Madam left. And Terry told me about the fight. He gave that Corporal Wagg a terrific bashing.”

  “Probably. It didn’t do Terry much good, though, did it? Now run along.”

  By the time she returned to the hall Dr. Summers was already on his way down the path towards his car.

  “Where’s he going?” asked Emma.

  “He’s got to give Terry an injection,” replied Mad. “He hasn’t the right stuff in his bag. He says he won’t be more than a quarter of an hour, and he’ll be back.”

  “How is he going to get Terry to the car?”

  “Oh, he fixed that with the beachcomber. I called him Taffy, by the way—he was delighted. He and Joe are rigging up a stretcher between them.”

  I’m beginning to sympathize with Dottie, thought Emma. Things happen too fast in this house. The rain was easing off, which was one good thing, although it was blowing just as hard. She wondered if she should put on her mac and boots and go down to the woods to help with the stretcher, and then, just as she had made up her mind to do so, she saw the little party advancing through the gap in the hedge by the plowed field.

  “Taffy’s a genius,” declared Mad, “he can put his hand to anything.”

  Terry, covered with a blanket and the beachcomber’s oilskin, was being borne along on a hurdle—or was it an old bedstead?—Joe in front, Mr. Willis behind. They came to rest where there was cover under the lime trees by the drive, and Emma and her grandmother went down to meet them. Mr. Willis was hatless and so was Mad, and with their shocks of white hair blowing in the wind they could easily be brother and sister, Emma thought, and she was thankful Colin was safe in the playroom.

  “He’s stood his journey well,” said Mr. Willis. “I don’t think we’ve shaken him up too badly, have we, boyo?”

  Terry tried to smile. He looked very white. Joe said nothing. He was arranging the blanket so that it didn’t rest on Terry’s leg. Mr. Willis stared critically up at the house, and Emma realized that despite the fact that he only lived at the bottom of the wood it was probably his first sight of it.

  “You feel the wind up here,” he said. “Nothing like as snug as my place.”

  “Oh, this is nothing,” replied Mad. “When it really blows we have to batten down just as if we were on board ship. The whole house rocks.”

  “I can well believe it,” he answered, staring at Mad with—was it astonishment or respect? Emma wondered if he was making a comparison with the star of forty years ago. She wished Bevil Summers would hurry up. They formed such a curious group huddled here under the lime trees. Joe looked disapproving and Terry whiter still.

  “Of course in old days,” said Mad, “it was a regular smugglers’ haunt. We have a basement where they used to store the kegs of rum. There’s one old wall, you can’t see it from here…”

  She seized the beachcomber by the sleeve and pointed, and she’s off, sighed Emma, there’ll be no stopping her. Further revelations, luckily, were cut short by the welcome arrival of the doctor’s car.

  “Ah,” he said, “you’ve got him here intact. Well done. Now, Terry, show what you’re made of. Stand back, everyone.”

  He advanced with his bag and proceeded to kneel beside the makeshift stretcher.

  “I got through the roadblock,” he continued, glancing up at Mad, “by telling the chap on duty that I had to return to the surgery for a very strong sedative to quieten an old lady who was giving me trouble. I don’t consider I was telling a lie. Incidentally, I understand from my secretary that the marines are picking up and questioning all youths between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one who have any connection with the technical school. Gelignite has been found on a couple of them. So, Terry my boy, you slept at home last night, and unfortunately, when you opened the gate to me just now, as I was driving hurriedly in to bring the sedative to your ailing parent by adoption, I somehow succeeded in knocking you down with my car. My guilt is such that I insist on keeping an eye on you myself in the local hospital rather than have you transferred to Truro, where, I don’t mind betting, the commandos would sit at your bedside with notebook and pencil. Now then, this won’t hurt.”

  He gave the injection, while Emma, who disliked jabs on principle, looked away. It was no use, however. She felt a buzzing in her ears and the world went black. The next thing she knew was that she was sitting on the drive and Mad was forcing her head between her knees.

  “I might have known,” her grandmother was saying. “She never could stand injections.”

  Emma raised her head and saw that all was over. The doctor and Mr. Willis had lifted Terry into the back of the car, and the doctor was patting Mr. Willis on the shoulder. “Good work,” he said crisply. Then the beachcomber picked up the bedstead stretcher and began to plod away towards the orchard.

  “Taffy,” shouted Mad, “come back. I haven’t thanked you for all you’ve done.”

  But Mr. Willis took no notice. Like Folly the Dalmatian, his hearing was not what it had been.

  Dr. Summers, with Terry comfortably arranged, looked down at Emma. “You told me when you were ten years old,” he said, “that you’d like to be a nurse. If you want to make the grade you’ll have to do rather better than you’re doing now. As for you…” he turned to her grandmother, “you’re supposed to have a serious heart condition, and I warn you that if I get another S.O.S. from Trevanal to say you’re in trouble I shall ignore the signal. Look after them, Joe. Good-bye.”

  As his car went up the drive the telephone started ringing. Emma, stung by the doctor’s allusion to her childhood fancy, went to answer it, despite her feeling of weakness below the knees. It was Myrtle Trembath.

  “Emma,” she said, “it’s a
bout Corporal Wagg. He’s off duty and he’s just been here.” She sounded troubled and was speaking in a whisper. “He kept asking questions about Terry, and I couldn’t say he was missing. I just told him I hadn’t heard a word from Terry since last night and he must be at home.”

  “Don’t worry,” Emma replied. “Terry’s all right. We know where he is. I can’t explain over the telephone. I’ll come down and see you in the morning.”

  “Oh, thank goodness… But Emma, the trouble is, Corporal Wagg believed what I said and is on his way to your place to see Terry.”

  “Well, too bad. He won’t find him.”

  “I thought I’d better warn you… He was quite nice, actually, and said he was sorry for what happened last night, and hoped there’d be no hard feelings. I don’t think he wants to pick Terry up, or anything like that, I believe he just wants to shake hands and apologize.”

  “All right, Myrtle. Thanks.”

  Apologize! A bit late in the day, and Terry in hospital with a broken leg. Not that slipping down the cliff had been the corporal’s fault, except indirectly. Emma decided to keep Myrtle’s information to herself. When the corporal turned up she would deal with him, and indeed take pleasure in telling him that Terry was in hospital under the doctor’s care.

  Corporal Wagg must have thought better of his good intention, for he never appeared. The rain ceased and the short November afternoon turned dim. Emma lay on the sofa in the music room with her eyes closed. Bevil Summers had rung to report that Terry was “comfortable” in hospital, which was something, but the house felt empty without him.

  It was about half-past five, curtains drawn, fire burning, when Joe came into the room. He was deathly pale.

  “Emma,” he said, “come with me.”

  “What is it?”

  He shook his head. He could not speak. Softly he opened the front door and beckoned Emma after him. It had stopped raining, the clouds had parted, the evening was fine and clear. He took her hand and led her to the lookout and down to the plowed field beyond. She saw then that there was something lying a few yards distant, a dark shape, spreadeagled. Joe, still holding her by the hand, led her to the body. It was Corporal Wagg. He was lying on his back, dead, with one of the lethal arrows between his eyes.

  10

  They stood there side by side staring down. Joe did not let go of her hand. The arrow’s jagged tip must have pierced some vital point behind the corporal’s right eye, because part of the eye lolled out, horribly, and the blood that had flowed at first was now congealed. Neither of them spoke. Emma tried to remember when it was that Myrtle had telephoned. Was it half-past three, was it four? Corporal Wagg had been on his way, having already left the farm. He might have wandered about the fields first, he might have gone onto the main road from the farm track and then cut back. He was off duty. Time was no object.

  Emma looked away from the body and up at Joe. She felt strangely calm.

  “He was coming to the house,” she said. “He wanted to apologize to Terry for the fight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Myrtle told me. It was Myrtle on the telephone. I didn’t tell anyone, there seemed no reason why I should. When the corporal didn’t turn up I thought he had changed his mind. It didn’t seem to matter much.”

  “You could have told me. I would have come to meet him. It wouldn’t have happened then.”

  “I know. I didn’t think.” Numbness that had been shock was wearing off. Horror was seeping into her, taking over.

  Although it was dark the visibility that had been poor all day had cleared now that the rain had ceased. Lights showed from the warship at anchor, she no longer seemed so far away. Across the bay the lights of Mevagissey shone brightly too, as they always did on a fine night. The beam from the lighthouse glowed, then faded, then glowed again.

  “When he doesn’t return to camp it will be reported,” said Joe.

  “Yes.”

  “Some of his mates may have known where he was going. He may have told them he was thinking of calling on Myrtle at the farm.” Joe bent down and gently, very gently, seized the arrow and tried to pull it away from the corporal’s eye, but it wouldn’t move. “I can’t shift it,” he whispered, “it’s too deep.”

  “Oh God,” said Emma, “what are we going to do?”

  The night was becoming clearer all the time, and the lights from the warship seemed brighter too. In the first glimmer of morning the plowed field would be like an open map beneath a helicopter flying overhead.

  “We’ve got to get him away,” said Joe, “we’ve got to get rid of his body. I might dig a pit up in the shrubbery, where there’s all that dead wood lying around.” He stared up at her, his face haggard.

  “No,” said Emma, “it wouldn’t be any use. Once he’s missing, and they come for him, surely they’ll bring tracker dogs. Wouldn’t they trace him as far as here, and then to the shrubbery, no matter how deeply you dug a pit?”

  “Perhaps they would,” said Joe. “I don’t know…” And then, in desperation, “We’ve got to tell someone. We’ve got to have proper advice. Couldn’t you ring Dr. Summers?”

  “No… Joe, we can’t. Look what he’s done for Terry today, lied, taken the blame on himself. Besides, how could he help with… with this?”

  So little time… Mad would be wondering where she had gone, where Joe had gone. And a further problem lay ahead. There was Andy to consider. Andy must be their prime concern.

  “Joe,” she whispered, “how did he do it? Could he have let fly at random and never even seen the corporal?”

  Joe shook his head. “No,” he said grimly, “Andy’s aim is far too accurate. He knows what he did all right, no mistake about that. My guess is that he came out to the pile of logs by the wall, just for practice maybe, and then spied Corporal Wagg coming across the field, and took aim and got him.”

  “Oh God…” whispered Emma, “oh God…”

  It seemed to her then that the events of tonight, last night, the preceding days, had all been foredoomed. They dated back to that first panic shot by the unknown marine who had taken fright at Spry. Since that fatal moment the world about them, safe, secure, had become threatening to all the boys, to Terry, to Sam, to Andy, even to Joe himself; born to insecurity, then loved and cherished, the shadows whence the boys had sprung were steadily closing in on them again. And Mad, with the power she had over all of them, had not helped. She had encouraged fantasy, built up their imaginations, and this, for Andy certainly, had now proved his undoing. How could a child tell truth from falsehood, reality from make-believe, when she who had nurtured him from babyhood had fed him with images of her own creation, phantoms from a greasepaint world? The fascination of her puppet show had driven Terry to bravado and pseudo-gallantry, and Andy to murder.

  “It’s Mad’s fault,” said Emma. “Andy’s not to blame.”

  Joe stared at her, outrage in his eyes. “How can it be her fault? She doesn’t know.”

  Emma gestured, hands spread out, and even as she did so, the gesture instinctive, she realized that this was what her grandmother did when urged to explanation, that her stance was the same, feet a little apart, chin jutting forward, and it was like being imprisoned in a net—or could it be a shroud?—from which there could never be escape. Not for her, at least, but surely for the boys?

  “It’s the way she’s brought us up,” said Emma, “you, me, all of us. Now we’re going to start paying for it, first Terry, then Andy.”

  The outrage in Joe’s eyes turned to pity, then disgust. “There’s a saying, isn’t there, about biting the hand that feeds you? I never thought you’d say a thing like that. What we’ve discovered here is beastly, yes, and we’re both of us shocked, you specially, I can’t blame you, but don’t put the fault on her…”

  He bent down once more, and seizing the corporal’s body by the heels dragged it from the plowed earth to the brambled ditch beneath the wall. The bare head bumped the soil as it was moved, the arrow stuc
k between the eyes jerking to and fro, and Emma, staring, hypnotized, thought this was a man once, breathing, smiling. Last night he held Myrtle in his arms and made love to her down on Poldrea beach. Vomit rose in her throat, and retching she spat away both venom and fear. We fear the living, not the dead, the body lying in the ditch is nothing, a husk, whatever indignities we inflict upon it now doesn’t matter, the flame is quenched.

  “I know what we must do,” she said, “we must tell Mr. Trembath. He’s embroiled anyway, because of Myrtle, should the marines go to the farm tomorrow and ask questions. But Myrtle mustn’t know Corporal Wagg is dead or what has happened. She’d break down at once, under questioning.”

  Joe thought for a moment or two, then nodded. “He’s got his Land Rover. We could lift the body into it, for a start. Cover it with manure maybe. Then decide what to do. I think you’re right, Emma.” He looked back towards the house. “What’s the time?”

  Emma glanced at her watch. “Just on six.”

  “I’ll go to the farm,” Joe told her. “They’ll be sitting to tea now milking’s over. I can easily get Mr. Trembath outside, tell him one of the ewes in lamb has strayed from their home pasture, anything. Then I’ll bring him up here. You’d best nip back to the house, and if Madam asks for me tell her the same story about the sheep.”

  He strode off at once, keeping under the lea of the hedge that defined the Trevanal boundary. Emma watched his figure disappear over the rim of rising ground, and looking down once more at the body in the ditch she tried to imagine how she would feel if instead of Corporal Wagg, barely known, it had been Joe lying there, or Terry. You don’t suffer, she thought, until it hits you, or you may suffer but you have to train yourself to stand it, that’s why doctors remain calm, and nurses too; but for their training they’d crumple. And that’s why Mad is brave in times of stress and keeps a bold front, because she is acting a part, she is trained to be someone else, and you can’t touch the core underneath. She went into the house just as Colin and Ben were coming out of the library on their way to bath and supper.