Our Yanks (35 page)

At first he couldn't answer and she went on holding his cold hand, waiting for him to speak. ‘Jack and Frank,' he said at last. ‘Both my brothers. Both killed. On the same day. Both gone. They told me earlier.'

He began to sob. Miss Cutteridge put her arms around him and cradled him against her, like a child.

‘Honoria Vernon-Miller here, Lady Beauchamp.' The romantic Christian name seemed wildly at odds with the stentorian bellow coming down the telephone wire. ‘Just been given a piece of news I thought I ought to pass on.'

Erika held the receiver a little further away. ‘Yes?'

‘Seems we won't be needed up at the King's Thorpe fighter base any more. The American Red Cross have taken that over. Got some brand new mobile canteens, apparently – all fitted out with the latest equipment. No expense spared. They don't need us and our old charabanc any more.'

‘I see.'

‘The point is, what do we do with the thing? The Americans paid for it but they say we can use it for what we like.'

‘That's very nice of them.'

‘Huh! Well, you know how fussy they are. Nothing but the best for their boys. Personally, I think we should offer our services to the RAF. Take it round one of our own bomber bases in the area. Tea and buns, not all that coffee and doughnuts nonsense. What do you think, Lady Beauchamp?'

‘Yes, I agree, if the RAF do.'

‘I'll get on to them at once. See if we can help. I'll come back to you.'

As Erika hung the receiver back on its hook, Miriam came into the study.

‘Who was that?'

‘Mrs Vernon-Miller.'

‘Oh,
her
. Interfering creature. She's always meddling in everything.'

‘She actually works very hard.'

‘At being a busybody.'

‘No, for the WVS. The country needs people like her. She gets on with things and gets things done.'

‘So do others but they don't make such a noise about it.'

Here we are arguing again, Erika thought. It won't do. She mustered patience. ‘Did you want something, Miriam?'

‘Only to talk about Alexander.'

‘What about him?'

‘The child spends far too much time on his own. Always with his nose in a book. I noticed that most particularly when you were away in London.'

‘He loves reading. So did his father.'

‘Richard also did other things. Played sports. Mixed with other boys of his own background. Lots of activities.' Erika could see what was coming and it came. ‘I really think, Erika, that you should reconsider the whole question of preparatory school. It's not fair to keep the child here for much longer. He should be given the advantages that are his birthright.'

She wanted to say, ‘I don't know how you have the nerve to criticize Mrs Vernon-Miller for meddling.' Instead, she said, ‘I'll talk to Alex about it, Miriam, and see what he thinks.'

‘What he thinks shouldn't be the consideration. He's too young to know what's good for him.'

‘He's also too young to be sent away and he's very happy as things are at the moment.'

‘He should be making other friends, not among village boys.'

‘He has some extremely good friends here. Alfie Hazlet, for example.'

Miriam gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘That merely makes my point. Preparatory-school friendships can last a lifetime and be of great benefit. I cannot conceivably imagine a boy like Alfie Hazlet being of any benefit to anyone.'

‘Can't you? I can. His brother Tom, too. They're both fine boys.'

‘I understand Tom Hazlet was caught stealing eggs recently. Is that really the sort of fine boy you want Alexander associating with? A young criminal?'

‘For heaven's sake, Miriam—'

The telephone rang again and Mrs Vernon-Miller barked in her ear. ‘Just had a word with one of the chaps at RAF Boxhall. They'd be delighted if we could do them. Tea and buns, like I said. I suggest we tackle it this way.'

The conversation went on, mainly at Mrs Vernon-Miller's end, and by the time it was finished her mother-in-law had given up waiting and left the study. Erika sat for a moment at her desk, wondering about Alex. Miriam's constant dripping was wearing away her defences. Was it really wrong and selfish of her to keep him here? Was he truly content being at a school with boys who saw his home as ‘too different'? The thing to do was to talk it all over with him again. He had a right to be consulted.

The phone rang again and this time it was a soft, deep American voice that was sweet music to her ears.

‘Sorry I couldn't call sooner. I've been away down at HQ and there's been no chance. How are you?'

‘I'm fine.' She was anything but fine but one didn't say so. Nobody was fine in wartime. Not when you were worried sick about someone; not when you could only be with them for such a cruelly short while.

‘I might be able to grab a couple of hours this evening. Can I take you to dinner?'

She could have wept. ‘It's my turn in the village canteen. I can't let them down.'

‘Sure. Then we'll make it another time. Soon as I can.'

She wanted to ask if he'd been flying combat missions and where, but of course she couldn't do that either. Careless talk costs lives. Be like Dad, keep Mum. Talk Kills. ‘Are you all right, Carl?'

‘Sure. Everything's OK. I'll call you again soon.'

She hung up the receiver slowly.

The big Conker Battle always took place around Halloween in Rush Meadow. Not the feeble playground game with the conkers threaded on the end of bits of string but a real war. Dick and Robbie and Seth and their gang against everyone who wasn't in it – each side lined up at opposite ends of the meadow and hurling conkers as hard as they could at each other. The first ones to get all the way across the meadow to the hedge on the other side were the winners. The conkers were collected for weeks beforehand, as soon as they started to fall.

‘Where're you going, Tom?'

‘To get some more conkers. We haven't got nearly enough.'

‘Can I come too?'

‘S'pose so.' At least Alfie couldn't eat them. ‘I'm taking a stick to knock them down.'

‘If I help, can I fight in the Battle too?'

‘No, you can't. You have to be over nine. That's the rules.'

When they got to the wood, Tom set about picking up any fallen conkers on the ground and putting them in a sack. Alfie walked around, kicking his boots through the drifts of fallen leaves, making a loud rustling noise; he was wearing his Yank cap with the peak stuck up.

‘I thought you were going to help, Alfie.'

‘I'm just looking for them.'

‘Well, there're none over there.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because that's an oak you're under. Conkers come from horse chestnuts. You've got to look under the right tree, stupid.'

Alfie kicked his way over and rummaged around. ‘I've found one.'

‘Put it in the sack, then, and keep looking. We've got to get hundreds of them, ‘less you want Dick and his side to win again, like they did last year.' The memory of that shameful defeat still rankled. They'd been driven backwards by the enemy under a non-stop hail of conkers; some of their side had even turned tail and fled, though he'd stood his ground to the last until he'd gone down under a combined assault by Dick, Robbie and Seth and at least ten others. The black eye and bruises had upset Mum no end. He went on searching and the sack grew fuller, but not full enough. Then he started bashing at the branches he could reach with his stick until some more fell down.

‘There aren't any left now,' said Alfie, who'd hardly got any.

Tom looked upwards into the tree. ‘Yes, there are. There're a whole lot still up there. I'll have to climb up and shake them down.' He hauled himself up onto a lower branch.

‘Can I come up, too, Tom?'

‘You won't be able to.'

‘Yes I will.'

Sometimes Alfie surprised him. Mostly he was hopeless and then he'd suddenly go and do something all right. He jumped up and caught hold of the branch and swung up like a monkey. ‘Here I am, see. I told you I could do it.'

‘Well be careful. Mum'll kill me if you go and fall off and break something.' Tom climbed up to the next branch and reached out to shake it so that the conkers in their spiky cases rattled to the ground. Then he climbed on up to the next branch, Alfie scrambling behind him. He was shaking away as hard as he could when they suddenly heard voices.

‘Who's that, Tom?'

‘How should I know?' He waited and watched as a Yank came along with his arm round a woman, stopped right under the horse chestnut tree and started kissing. Just his luck! He flapped his hand to Alfie to tell him to keep quiet. Maybe they'd go away soon. But they didn't. After a bit more kissing the Yank spread his coat on the ground and they lay down. Tom groaned. They'd be there for ages, being soppy and doing things. He'd seen them all over the place in the summer – under the hedges, in cornfields, orchards, haystacks, barns . . . It was mostly the women's fault, he reckoned, the way they chased the Yanks.

‘Why're they taking their clothes off?' Alfie whispered.

He didn't feel like trying to explain any of it. ‘They're hot.'

‘They can't be.' Alfie peered down. ‘What're they doing now?'

‘He likes her, that's all.' He looked away.

‘That's Mrs Honeybun under there, isn't it?'

‘Shut up.'

‘He's
squashing
her.'

Before he could stop him, Alfie had pulled a prickly conker off a branch and taken aim. It hit the Yank hard on his bare bottom and he yelped and looked up. The woman screamed and started grabbing at her skirt and things.

‘Hallo, Mrs Honeybun,' Alfie said, leaning down. ‘I thought it was you.'

‘You oughtn't to have done that,' Tom said later on as they were going home dragging a sackful of conkers between them.

‘I thought she'd be glad.'

‘Well, she wasn't, was she? Nor was the Yank. They thought we were spying on purpose, like Dick and Robbie and the others do. We ought to have waited till they'd gone.'

‘But he was squashing her.'

‘She didn't mind, stupid.'

Alfie kicked his boots all along a deep gulley of beech leaves, sending them sailing high up into the air in front of him. ‘Anyway, we got the conkers, didn't we?'

‘When's our Yank coming back, Miss?'

‘I don't know, Charlie. Get on with your painting.'

‘Billy says he's never coming back. He told Joan and made her cry.'

‘Billy doesn't know anything about it.'

‘He's got to come back for Jessie, hasn't he?'

‘Yes, that's what he said he'd do.'

‘Then he'll sing some more songs with us, won't he? Yank ones.'

‘Yes, I expect so, Charlie.'

‘I hope he does. I liked him. Joan says she's going to marry him when she grows up.'

‘Get on with your painting now.'

‘If he doesn't come, can we keep Jessie?'

‘I should think so.'

The Scottie came to school with her every day and the children loved her. They took her out into the playground and with them on Nature Walks, and Jessie let them pat her and hug her and squeeze her. Father had been delighted with her, too. ‘I shall be quite sorry when Ed comes back for her, Agnes. Quite sorry.'

If he ever does, she thought. He may never come back again. He could be posted somewhere else, miles away, perhaps not even in Europe. Three hundred hours to a fighter pilot's combat tour. What chance of survival was that? For all she knew he might be dead already. There had been one letter from New York, that was all. It had said very little and it had taken weeks to reach her.

‘Please, Miss, I've finished.'

She went over to admire the painting. ‘That's very good, Joan. What lovely flowers you've done. We must pin that up on the wall.'

‘Can we do ‘Yankee-Doodle' later, Miss?'

‘If you like.'

They sang it all together, gathered round her.

Then they did ‘Oh, Susannah don't you cry for me' and ‘Camptown Races', shouting out the
Doo-da
!
Doo-da
! bit as loud as they could.

But it wasn't the same without a Yank to sing it with them and to bounce little Joan on his knee.

‘Rang up that fellow in charge up the road,' Brigadier Mapperton said to his wife from behind
The Times
newspaper.

‘Who dear?'

‘You know, Colonel Whatsisname. The American chap.'

‘Schrader.'

‘Yes, that's it. Keep forgetting. The memory box isn't what it used to be. Damned odd name for someone on our side, if you ask me, but then they've all got odd names.'

‘Not all of them.'

‘Well, most of them. They all come from somewhere else, I suppose.'

‘What did you want to telephone him for?'

‘Couple of complaints, you know. Minor stuff but it's only right to keep him in the picture. Saves any ill feeling.'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘We've got to fight this war together, so we may as well get on together – that's what I say. I think I've always said that.'

‘Oh yes, dear.'

‘I asked him over for bridge one evening, as a matter of fact. Thought I'd make up a four: Miss Skinner and Lady Beauchamp – the young one. Don't much care for the old one. Damned fine bridge-player, though. Pity you don't play, Cicily.'

The brigadier turned over a page of the newspaper. He'd tried to teach her years ago, when they were first married, but it had been hopeless. She simply hadn't got a head for cards. ‘Anyway, the chap couldn't make it. Apologized and all that, but he's got too much on his plate. Quite understandable, of course. Pity, though. He was quite a reasonable player.'