Danger at my Heels, page 9
An idea occurred to me. “My firm wrote to him. I wonder if he got our letter. Only you know what it is with the bombing, sometimes letters go astray.”
“There is a letter for him.”
My game was obvious enough—take a room and get hold of that letter (presumably it was the one posted by Chrissa). I told her that I had insurance calls to make in the neighbourhood, and asked heir to put me up for a night or two.
The room she showed me was neat and tidy, with a picture of the Virgin and Child over the iron bedstead. The chintz curtains at the latticed windows framed a pleasant view of the country.
Then tea in the parlour. A red plush sofa, some china objects that some people bring back from the seaside; a picture of a glen in the Highlands, and one of some birds in flight; there was even waxed fruit on the figured oak sideboard.
Halfway through tea, I remembered my rôle. I gather that a travelling salesman is pretty fly about what he pays for his keep, so I asked her what she charged. She named a price that was ridiculously cheap, and then looked ashamed, as though she would have liked to give me the food. The anxious look on her gentle, tired face, entirely won my heart.
Her husband kept to the kitchen, but after tea they both came in. They sat down shyly, in case I thought they were intruding. He was a good fellow, with a red face, frank and open. He said: “Mother makes very good cakes. I know, I’ve eaten them for forty years.”
“She gave a shy little smile, like a schoolgirl on being complimented before strangers. Soon I got the conversation round to Bryant. I wanted to find out where they kept the letter.
“I suppose the letter waiting for him is from us. Do you think I could see it?”
Crossing to the sideboard, Mrs. Warren pulled open a drawer. She took out a letter and handed it to me. I felt a quickening of my pulse. The address had been typed in on the same machine as the letter to Caldecott.
I did some quick thinking. Then I said: “No, that’s not from my firm.”
Mrs. Warren put it back in the sideboard drawer, which she did not trouble to lock. It looked as though my task was going to be easier than I had dared hope.
She said: “What a pity, Mr. Scott!” (Scott was the name I had given.) “But if you wanted to see Mr. Bryant very badly, we can tell you he’s gone to Horncastle.”
“Where’s that?” I asked as casually as I could.
“Over past Grantham.”
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
“I’m afraid we don’t. But I understand Horncastle’s not a big place.”
They looked distressed at not being able to help me.
“I’ll be working towards that direction,” I said. (Not that I had the least idea where Horncastle might be.) “The trouble is that I don’t know what Mr. Bryant looks like.”
Mrs. Warren gave a smile.
“We’ve got a picture of him. Dad snapped him with his camera.”
The husband chuckled reminiscently.
“He wouldn’t pose for me. Made quite a fuss, didn’t he, mother! But I got him when he wasn’t looking. When he saw the result, he liked it and wanted all the prints and negative. But I kept one print.”
I could understand Mr. Bryant’s reluctance to pose. Better still his anxiety to destroy the results. They showed me the snapshot. Bryant was a big fellow, with a strong jaw and well-defined features. Easy to remember.
“If you go to Horncastle,” said Mr. Warren, “stay at the Ox-Post. It’s run by a man we know. You’ll find he’ll treat you well.”
Then they told me something about themselves. They had been married forty years, and came from London—Streatham way. Warren had worked in the city, in one of those old-fashioned, reliable firms. I could picture him as he left his semi-detached villa every morning. He would have a bowler hat on his head, and under his arm a newspaper. Each year he and the wife went to Clacton or Margate. Sometimes they talked of saving a bit extra and going abroad, but they could never stand the idea of the messed-up food the foreigners gave you to eat! The wife’s cooking was good enough for any man—and better for your inside.
Warren took out insurance policies, and paid his debts on the nail. Hard work never killed any man, and he had done his share. The peace of old age would be well earned by both of them.
Then came the War.
September 7th, 1940, saw the first blitz over London, and one night a high explosive blew that city firm to bits. Warren no longer journeyed each day to work.
They were too old to begin again. What was left to them had been invested in this cottage.
They told me all this in a shy, diffident manner. Sometimes I had to guess at what they left unsaid. They talked, without pity for themselves, but full of compassion for others. When Warren spoke of smashed and mangled children being taken from a bombed building, his wife gave a little gasp. “God could not let such wicked men endure!”
They were not pretentious or clever folk. But their lives had been a pattern of goodness. Troubles had been faced with patience and resignation. Only the violence that had now entered their lives hurt and puzzled them.
How could men be so cruel?
“My boy was in the army,” Mrs. Warren said, shyly; then to her husband, “Dad, perhaps Mr. Scott would like to see Dick’s picture!”
Warren got out a snapshot. It showed me a young man in his twenties, curly-haired, boyish. He was in khaki, with his forage cap to the side of his head. Across his face was the confident smile of youth.
“Very nice,” I murmured. “Where is he now?”
She said nothing. It was the husband who spoke.
“He was at Dunkirk.”
I sensed another tragedy. It was difficult to know what to say.
“He’s missing. . . . He’s my only child, you know.”
The woman said it—very softly. Then Warren gave an unconvincing little chuckle.
“We’ll see the young rascal back at the end of the War.”
“A tremendous amount of the missing men must be alive,” I said.
Neither of them answered. They seemed to be hesitating over something. Then the wife gave a little nod. It was a signal of assent. Her husband turned to the sideboard and took out two letters. Rather diffidently he handed them to me. Both looked well thumbed, well read.
“A pal of Dick’s wrote one of them. The other’s from his Commanding Officer. You might like to see them.”
My heart sank. A letter from the Commanding Officer could surely mean only one thing.
I read the letter from the friend. It began, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Warren.” It mentioned the retreat to Dunkirk. They were there in time to escape, but Dick had gone back to help a wounded comrade. “If he had not gone back,” ran the letter, “he would have got on board with us. But he refused to leave a friend. It was a fine thing to do. All of the lads join me in saying how brave we thought him. We are all proud to have known him.”
The letter from the Commanding Officer said much the same thing in different words. Their son had been seen in a rowing boat, making for a destroyer. The rowing boat had been overturned, Germans had machine-gunned men struggling in the water. The letter ended on commending a very gallant man who went back to save a fallen comrade.
They eyed me tremulously as I read the letters. They were so very proud of him. They and Dick had given so much.
When I had finished reading, Warren said: “That pal of Dick’s came to see us. It was very nice of him. He said that Dick had supported this wounded man for a long way and wouldn’t leave him. But the Germans were a dirty lot to go for men in the water!”
He suddenly remembered his wife, and gave her an anxious look.
“Of course Dick got back to the beach all right. He could swim.”
She said nothing.
The room seemed very quiet and still. I wondered how much belief these two really had in his survival. Must they think, in face of it all, that he was alive? Perhaps it was too hard to realize that they would never see him again.
I did not know what to say.
“He was very brave.”
I gave the letters back to the wife. That gentle face was quite expressionless. But, as she took them, her hands trembled slightly. It was as though through them she could touch her son.
Warren attempted another laugh—if that mirthless sound could be so called. It was for his wife’s sake.
“On the day he comes back we’ll have a real do together. He was always fond of mother’s cooking. I expect he’ll want some decent English food by then.”
“When he was a little boy he liked rabbit pie. He called it ‘Bunny’s Cottage.’ I’ll give him some of that.”
* * * * *
After supper Warren and I walked into Cradstone for a drink.
As we sat in a corner, over our beer, it occurred to me that I had made insufficient comment on my companion’s loss. I sensed that, though the subject hurt him it was something he wanted to talk about. He asked commendation, not for his own sake, but for his son’s. It loomed so largely in his own life that he felt others could not be indifferent. But war is prodigious of sacrifice. The world forgets too soon.
“It was a very brave act of your son’s, going back to help someone. You must be very proud.”
“Dick was like that. He would never leave anyone who was hurt. He could have got away easily. But he wouldn’t leave anyone—not to those swines.”
I tried some comfort.
“I wouldn’t worry too much. The Germans don’t announce the names of all their prisoners.”
Then Warren said, very simply, “He’s dead.”
His voice became gruff. He spoke in the rather shamefaced way Englishmen use when betraying any emotion. Then he lifted his head and looked at me. His face showed his naked grief. It was so lined and tired that he seemed to age before my eyes.
“I’d rather he was dead a thousand times than in the hands of those Germans. But I made out I think he’s alive for mother’s sake. It’d break her heart if she really knew.”
* * * * *
Back at Pin Down Farm, Mrs. Warren showed me as much kindness as if I had been one of the family. “Had I enough blankets? I must say if I wanted anything.”
I felt ashamed at having to deceive them.
I went off to my room, got undressed and lay on the bed with the lights out, smoking. Soon they went to their room, and the murmur of their voices sounded through the thin walls. This made me cautious. The slightest sound could be heard all over the cottage. I dare not move until they were asleep.
At a quarter past twelve, I put on my coat as a dressing-gown and crept on to the landing. The stairs creaked as I went down them, but the rest of the house was as quiet as death. In the parlour I shut the door before putting on the light.
I took the letter and another envelope from the sideboard and went into the kitchen. Here I put a kettle of water on the gas ring. When the water boiled I steamed open the envelope. Then I pulled out the slip of paper. I read the message with a feeling of disappointment: “9.4.41. St. Alb. 8.8. H.5. 21.5.”
It meant nothing to me. A nasty blow after my high hopes.
Anyway, I jotted it down on a bit of paper, dried the envelope over the gas-ring, and licked the adhesive part of the empty envelope, transferring some of the gum to the envelope addressed to Bryant.
I pressed it down and, going back to the parlour, put it in the sideboard drawer. It occurred to me that the gas was still burning in the kitchen, so I went in there to turn it off.
Before returning to my room, I had another look at the message. Solving cryptographs and suchlike is not my strong point. But I stood in the kitchen trying to make something of it. My thoughts were far away as the door creaked and opened, so at first I was not conscious of the noise. Then I looked up. Mrs. Warren was standing in the doorway, watching me.
She was in a dressing gown, and on her face was a look of anxious inquiry. I nearly lost my head, a silly thing to do before this kind, gentle woman.
“Is there anything wrong, Mr. Scott?”
I pulled myself together. Some explanation was obviously necessary. If I missed Bryant at Horncastle, I did not want the Warren’s account of my visit to alarm him. My eyes fell on the kettle.
“I’m so sorry I disturbed you, Mrs. Warren. But I couldn’t sleep, so I came to make myself some tea. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind. But you sit down, I’ll do it.”
She put me in a chair and began making tea with a practised hand. She was so quiet and gentle that it was soothing to watch her. She asked me about London. As we talked she gave me a happy little smile, as though she was conscious we were playing truant. We chatted gaily; and once when she laughed she looked up guiltily, in case the sound had wakened her husband. You could almost see there the girl she had once been.
There is a strange communion between two people awake together in a sleeping world. We talked long after the tea had become cold. And I think that for just a little while she forgot her troubles and her broken heart.
Then I made a stupid mistake.
There was an attractive mug hanging on the dresser, it looked as though it might be hand-painted; I got up and took it off the hook.
“This is a nice cup.”
She looked at it. For a moment she was silent.
“It was Dick’s.”
I put it back and sat down again. The clock on the mantelpiece was ticking loudly. I had smashed a piece of contentment.
“I suppose you’re keeping it until he comes back.”
It was a trite thing to say. But I do not think that she heard me. She seemed to have slipped far away. Her thoughts had left this dimly-lit room, with its black-out curtains, and fled tremulously into the past; to a London house and a world that was peaceful, kindly and safe. I fancied she was looking down the years, fondling a baby’s clothes, hearing him laugh and cry. She sighed—very gently.
Then she gave me a look that tugged at my heart strings.
Such a sad little smile.
“Dick’s dead really, but I pretend he isn’t—for Dad’s sake.”
CHAPTER X
I arrived in Horncastle the next day. It proved to be a red-bricked country town in Lincolnshire, about twenty miles from the North Sea.
I was still a “traveller in insurance” and hoped to find Bryant at the Ox-Post. I had the advantage of knowing what he looked like; whereas with any luck, he would not know me from Adam. But I had to hurry, because something must be done before the 9th of April. It was now the 5th.
The Ox-Post was up the slope of the road to Lincoln, well out of Horncastle. It was a pub rather than a hotel. A white building, with creeper growing over the porch. A dark-eyed, coquettish maid-servant showed me into the parlour and got the landlord. He was a cheerful, red-faced man, with a very loud voice.
I asked him about Bryant. No doubt he had been recommended to the Ox-Post by the Warrens, as I had been. It was surprising to find that the landlord had never heard of him. This meant a hunt round Horncastle, and I thought it as well to learn something about the place. The landlord told me that there were a lot of soldiers in the town and a few evacuees.
“Jerry doesn’t bomb us much. Most of his stuff goes Hull, Grimsby way. But you’ll hear our bomber boys going over to blast them.”
He mentioned the various places where Bryant might be staying, and, later in the day, I went out to have a look round. But there was no sign of him.
My bedroom at the Ox-Post was a substantial place, with a four-poster bed and solid, old-fashioned furniture—large stuff with no nonsense about it; an oak chest of drawers, and a wardrobe large enough to sit down in. There were flower beds in the garden, and a drain-pipe ran down the wall.
Later, I was to remember this.
It was evening, nearly dusk, and from overhead came a hum of aeroplane engines—R.A.F. machines. They were flying low, very slowly, and coming one at a time. I think they were Wellingtons. They looked like giant dragonflies droning across the sky.
The dark-eyed maid came in. She gave me a look through her long lashes, and asked if she could do the black-out.
“Do you come from London, sir?”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“I’ve always wanted to go there.”
She stayed to chat about London, films and night clubs. She was interested in all three.
From time to time she looked at me through her lashes, a trick she must have picked up from the films. She hadn’t quite got it yet, but with a little more practice she would probably be devastating among the local soldiery. It was clear that she lived in a maze of daydreams.
A bell sounded, and she reluctantly broke off the conversation. At the door, she remarked: “Nothing ever happens here, I wish it would.”
Then, on the spur of the moment, I said: “If anyone should ask for me, will you let me know before you say whether I’m in or out? Sometimes there’s people who you don’t want to meet in the insurance business.”
She smiled. “O.K. I’ll give you the tip.”
After dinner I went up to my room feeling that I was getting nowhere. The chances were that Bryant had not come within miles of Horncastle. I decided to have a last look round in the morning, and then clear out after lunch.
I had another go trying to read the two messages, and chain-smoked in an effort to find inspiration. I twisted the figures about, until they danced before my eyes. But they still did not make any sense.
“9.4.41. Wat. 4.4. H.5. 9½.”
“9.4.41. St. Alb. 8.8. H.5. 21.5.”
Finally, I gave it up. My only hope seemed to be Prestby Post Office, and that didn’t look too promising. I had left London in high spirits; it had appeared then that I was on to something, but it had all petered out.
The next morning, at breakfast, someone asked where they had raided the night before—a question that has now taken the place of inquiries about the weather.
Then a last look round the town revealed no sign of Bryant; I went up to my room to pack.
I bundled my things into an attaché case I had bought, and then stood rather aimlessly at the window, having a final smoke. My room was on the corner, facing the back, and you could hear the traffic on the main Lincoln road. A car, travelling very fast, was coming from the direction of Horncastle. It pulled to a stop with a screech of brakes.
