Wartime Friends, page 4
Carolyn’s heart dropped. Oh dear! She saw Peter glance behind him, a little nervously, she thought. She didn’t need to look round; she knew Lilian and Peter’s mother, Phyllis, were walking together. Softly, he said, ‘Could we go for a walk this afternoon? Down to the Point, maybe?’
Peter was tall and slim, but his build belied his strength; working on the farm he was certainly no weakling. Though his expression at the moment was serious, when he smiled his face lit up and his laughter was infectious.
Keeping her tone light, Carolyn said, ‘That’d be nice. Call for me about two. All right?’
As she fell back to wait for her grandfather to drive her mother and herself home in his truck – Eddie and Tom cycled to church, rain or shine – she couldn’t fail to notice the same beaming smile on the faces of both her mother and Mrs Carter.
Considering they were not related, Lilian and Phyllis Carter were remarkably similar in both looks and character. They were both slim with greying hair drawn back from their faces. Both dressed drably in browns and blacks and both had pinched, dissatisfied faces. On most weekdays, they were always to be found in pinnies, only donning their better clothes to go into town to shop or on Sundays to attend church. Neither ever wore make-up. In fact, they were disparaging of Eve Atkinson, calling her ‘fast’.
‘I don’t know what she saw in our Harold,’ Lilian had often confided to Phyllis. ‘Nor he in her. Anyone less likely to make a good farmer’s wife, I’ve yet to meet.’ As it had turned out, however, Lilian had been wrong; Eve was a very good farmer’s wife, a wonderful mother and family member. She was never afraid to put on an overall or a smock – even wellingtons – and pitch in to help with whatever needed doing. She’d been known to put her arm right inside a cow to help with a difficult birthing; something even Lilian had never done.
Lilian and Phyllis were not exactly friends – they tolerated one another – but they were united in their goal to see their children joined in marriage.
‘What did he say? Did he ask you out?’ Lilian couldn’t contain her curiosity as they climbed into the bench seat in the front of Frank’s truck.
‘We’re going for a walk this afternoon,’ Carolyn said shortly and avoided her mother’s penetrating gaze.
‘Then mind you wear something pretty.’
Carolyn tried to suppress her laughter, but it escaped as an undignified snort which she managed to turn into a cough.
‘Mind you wear summat warm, lass,’ was Frank’s only advice. ‘It can be cold at the Point, even at this time of the year.’
It was her grandfather’s advice she took; she loved the Point, where the land and the sea seemed to meet the sky. It was wild and lonely and desolate, with seagulls wheeling and diving overhead, their cries filling the air, but it was not the warmest place Peter could have picked for a proposal, if that was what this was. She fervently hoped not, but there was only one way to find out.
They walked side by side, the wind almost blowing them along.
‘It’ll be tough going back,’ Peter said. ‘Head wind then. Maybe we shouldn’t . . .’
‘No, I’m fine, honestly. Just what I need to blow the cobwebs away. Come on, I’ll race you to the Hump.’
They walked and ran the last half-mile to the small hill in the road that led them directly to the marsh area, but over the final few yards Peter beat her easily and turned to face her, a huge grin on his face. ‘You’re getting soft in that office job of yours already. Sitting at a desk all day. And you’ve only been there a month.’
Playfully, Carolyn punched his shoulder gently. ‘Don’t you start.’
‘Actually, I want you to know that I’m really proud of you for learning other skills to get a better job. I think it’s great.’
Carolyn’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. How’s it going? Are you enjoying it?’
‘I’m loving it,’ Carolyn said. ‘But actually, at the moment, I don’t use my shorthand and typing. Not there anyway.’
The two had been friends from childhood and Peter knew almost as much about her as she knew herself. They had cycled to and from school together. Played together and worked on the farm together, especially at ‘tattie picking’ time. And often, they had been each other’s confidant.
‘It’s a stepping stone for you, though, isn’t it?’ Peter guessed accurately. ‘Your next job – in an office of your choice – will need that sort of expertise. I’m so pleased for you. I just wish I’d been able to stay on and take my school certificates, but – well, you know the reason I couldn’t.’
She knew only too well. Peter had been obliged to leave school as soon as he was old enough to find work to help support his widowed mother. Frank had been pleased to give him work on his farm.
Gently, Carolyn asked, ‘I know you couldn’t, but just supposing you could have stayed on at school, what would you like to have done?’
‘Gone to university,’ Peter answered without a moment’s hesitation, but then he added with a wry grin, ‘that’s if I’d been clever enough.’
‘I’m so sorry you didn’t get the chance you deserve.’
Peter shrugged, but he couldn’t hide the disappointment in his eyes. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Caro. I love working for your grandfather. He’s a grand boss. And I do like the outdoor life and I love where we live, even if it is a bit remote.’
‘But it’s not what you would have chosen to do.’
‘It’s just that, sometimes, I wish I’d seen a bit more of the world. But please don’t tell anyone what I’ve said, will you?’
‘Of course not.’ Carolyn laughed. ‘We’ve always shared each other’s secrets and I have certainly never told another soul anything you’ve confided in me.’
‘Me neither,’ he said smiling.
They walked on in silence, reaching the very edge of the Point and then walking even further along what the locals called the Spit, a promontory of land jutting right out into the sea.
At the very end, with the cold North Sea lapping around three sides of them, Peter sought her hand and held it. ‘Caro, I . . .’
‘Please, Peter, don’t say it. I don’t want to hurt you. I love you dearly as a friend, but nothing more. I – I’m so sorry . . .’
She felt his hand tighten around hers and then he said, ‘Oh, thank the Lord for that.’ He threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound carried away on the wind. ‘Oh Caro, my dearest, dearest friend, you don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that.’ Then he looked down at her, his fair hair unruly in the wind, his hazel eyes full of affection and his weather-tanned face creased in smiles. ‘I have agonized over this for weeks – months even. How stupid I’ve been not to have spoken to you about it before now. Do you truly mean it?’
Carolyn was laughing and crying at the same time. Relief flooded through her. ‘Oh Peter. We’ve both been foolish letting our mothers put such ideas into our heads.’ Then her laughter died. ‘What are we going to do about them? They’ll be so dreadfully hurt and disappointed.’
‘I don’t think we need to say anything to anyone just yet. I still want to see you as a friend, so they won’t notice anything different because there won’t be.’ He paused and his voice took on a serious tone, ‘Caro, you do know there’s a war coming, don’t you?’
Startled, she turned to face him and looked up into his eyes. ‘What?’
He sighed. ‘Don’t your parents ever talk about it?’
She shook her head.
‘Don’t you hear it spoken about at work?’
Now her voice was husky with fear as she said, ‘No. No one’s said a word.’
‘And you don’t read the newspapers?’
Again she shook her head. ‘Mother won’t have one in the house. She says they’re all lies anyway.’
‘But the radio? You have a wireless, surely?’
‘Tom has.’
‘Does he listen to the news?’
‘I – I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ve never asked him. It’s not really that sort of wireless.’
‘And your grandfather or even the Foxes? Haven’t any of them said anything?’
‘No, they haven’t.’ Now Carolyn felt angry. She suspected that she had been kept in the dark deliberately about national and international affairs and now she felt foolish and naive.
‘I think, Peter,’ she said slowly, as they turned away from the end of the Spit and began to walk back the way they had come, ‘you’d better tell me everything you know.’
Six
‘Start at the beginning,’ Carolyn encouraged him.
Peter ran his hand through his hair. ‘Trouble is, there are different views on where the beginning really is. Your grandad thinks that the Great War never really decided anything. That we’ve just had a twenty-year truce.’
‘You’ve talked about it to Grandad?’
‘Oh yes. He’s a grand chap to talk to. He has such a balanced, common-sense view about – well, about everything.’
‘He wasn’t in the war, though, was he?’
‘No, but your Uncle Harold was. Mind you, like all of ’em, he won’t talk about it.’
‘He went at seventeen, just for the last year of the war,’ Carolyn said. ‘I do know he volunteered, even though he had no need to. He wouldn’t have been called up either, being in agriculture. Mam says it nearly broke Granny’s heart.’
‘He came back, though, didn’t he, and without a scratch? He was lucky.’
‘Very, but I sometimes wonder if that’s why he’s a bit quiet and solemn. Maybe there are things he can’t talk about and yet he can’t forget them either.’ She paused and then added, ‘Tom knows a bit more than I do about what’s going on now. I think they have discussions about it in class at school. He was saying that our prime minister went to Germany last September and signed a peace agreement with them. What’s the name of the chap in charge there now? In Germany?’
Peter blinked, amazed that Carolyn should be quite so ignorant of what was going on outside the confines of her own little world. He thought that, by now, she would at least have heard talk at work.
‘Adolf Hitler.’
‘And who is he?’
‘The chancellor of Germany.’
‘Oh yes, now I do remember learning about that when I was still at school. They don’t have a king or an emperor anymore, do they?’
‘No. They had the Kaiser but when he lost the Great War, he abdicated and went into exile in the Netherlands. I think he’s still alive but now Hitler has assumed control. The only person who really stood between him and complete power for a time was the president, Hindenburg, but in January 1933, Hindenburg, by then an old man, actually appointed Hitler as chancellor in an effort to prevent a civil war between Hitler’s National Socialists and the Communists. When Hindenburg died eighteen months later, Hitler abolished the role of president, proclaimed himself führer and Reich chancellor and appointed himself supreme commander of the armed forces, demanding an unconditional oath of obedience – not to the position, but to himself personally. And so, that way, he obtained absolute power. He’s a dictator, Carolyn, and they’re dangerous.’
‘They’ve got one in Italy, haven’t they? I do know that much.’
‘Yes. Mussolini. He gained overall power in 1925 and then began flexing his muscles in 1935 by invading Abyssinia.’
‘So is Hitler sort of copying him, d’you think?’
Peter smiled. At least Carolyn’s grasp of the situation was sharp now that she was being told what was happening.
‘More than likely. He’s certainly learning a thing or two from him. Hitler’s a strange man really. Not much to look at, but he seems to wield some sort of fascination. His speeches arouse such a fervent response in the crowds that they all stand and give the Fascist salute, chanting “Sieg heil”.’
‘What does that mean?’
Peter smiled wryly. ‘I didn’t know, so I looked it up. It means “Hail victory”. It’s become the chant of Hitler’s Nazis, usually accompanied by a straight, right-arm salute. Either that or “Heil Hitler”.’
‘And who are the Nazis?’
‘The full name is The National Socialist German Workers’ Party. He’s rearming Germany and is also fostering racism, particularly against the Jews. He wants to build a master race of pure Aryan blood, as he calls it, and he’s banned German-Jewish marriages.’
‘That sounds evil to me.’
‘It is, Caro. In thirty-six, Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, contrary to the terms of the Versailles agreement, but he proposed a new treaty for twenty-five years’ peace. There have been rumblings the last couple of years, but Britain’s been preoccupied at home with the jobless marches, the death of the King and then the abdication, which no one saw coming. Behind the scenes, though, the RAF was quietly aiming to treble its strength, so I think there were a few who still saw Hitler as a threat even back then. A couple of years ago he started to call for more living space for the German people. Now, how do you get that?’
Carolyn stared at him as she whispered hoarsely, ‘By taking it from neighbouring countries.’
‘Exactly. In March last year, he marched into Austria, welcomed, it has to be said, by much of the population, who seemed delighted to be incorporated into the German Reich. I read somewhere that at that time Austria was a very poor nation and they thought that being a province of Germany would bring them prosperity. Not so universally popular, however, was the handing-over of the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia in the Munich Agreement, which was seen as a way to prevent another war in Europe.’
‘That was what Mr Chamberlain’s famous piece of paper was about, wasn’t it? I did hear someone at work talking about that and saying that there wouldn’t be a war because the prime minister had got – now what did they call it?’
‘“Peace for our time”.’
‘That was it, yes.’
‘But it wasn’t, Caro. It was anything but. Hitler wasn’t going to stop there. Six months later, in March this year, he broke that agreement, overran the rest of the country and marched into Prague. But this time there was no welcome for him as there had been in Austria and even, to some extent, in the Sudetenland. We seemed to wake up then and our prime minister has now pledged to defend Poland should it be attacked. Hitler and Mussolini are a dangerous pair, Caro. Only this last week they signed what they call a “Pact of Steel”.’
‘Ah. I can guess what that means and it doesn’t sound good for the rest of mainland Europe, or even for us.’
‘Exactly.’
They walked in silence for a while before Peter said, ‘Our government is now quietly preparing for war. Air-raid shelters are being set up, especially in London, and plans for the evacuation of children are being made.’
They came to the Hump again and stood on top of it. They turned to face the path they had just walked. To their left was marshland and beyond that the beach. To their right, the river flowed towards the sea. Boats moored on the banks bobbed as the tide rose and then were stranded on the mudbanks when the water ebbed. Birds wheeled overhead, their cries the only sound above the wind and the waves.
‘I love this place,’ Carolyn murmured. Then she shook herself and turned her attention back to what Peter had been telling her.
‘How do you know all that?’
‘I read the papers and – like I said – I’ve been talking to your grandad. D’you know what he said to me?’
Carolyn shook her head.
‘“Everyone will think he’s going to come across the Channel at the narrowest point,” Mr Frank said, “and perhaps he will, but I know what I’d do if I was Herr Hitler and I wanted to invade England.”’
‘What did he say?’ Carolyn whispered.
‘Your grandad said he’d land on our East coast, where the land is flat and the population sparse. No cliffs to scale, very little in the way of defences while all our troops would be concentrating on defending the South Coast.’
‘He – he means here?’
‘Precisely.’ Peter waved his arm, encompassing the inlets from the sea leading to the river. ‘At high tide, he’d have no problem.’ And then he gestured to the flat farmlands behind them. ‘And just think of his troops swarming inland with no one to stop them.’
‘Oh Peter, don’t.’
‘Caro,’ Peter said softly, but there was a determination in his tone now. ‘If war does come, I shall volunteer.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Must you? I mean, won’t they have reserved occupations like they did last time? Being a farm worker, you could get an exemption.’
‘I want to go, Caro. I want to see a bit of the world. I can’t just stay here all my life. I – I feel like I’m stagnating.’ Swiftly, he added, ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. Your grandad is wonderful to work for, but – I suppose I’ve just got itchy feet and this would be a chance to do something worthwhile.’
‘Helping to feed the nation is worthwhile, Peter.’ His only answer was to kick a stone and watch it roll down the slope, so she asked gently, ‘What does your mother say?’
‘I haven’t told her yet,’ he muttered.
Carolyn said no more but she could imagine Mrs Carter’s reaction; she would throw what the Holmes family called ‘a ducky fit’.
Lilian was hovering near the back door when Carolyn let herself in.
‘Well?’
Carolyn blinked, pretending to be mystified. ‘Well . . . What?’
‘What happened? Did he propose? Are you walking out together officially now?’
‘We’re not walking out, Mam, officially or otherwise. We’re just very good friends. Always have been and, I hope, we always will be.’
Lilian opened her mouth, but Carolyn cut her off. ‘Where’s Tom? I need to talk to him.’
Lilian sighed. For once, she seemed to realize she was beaten. At least for the moment, but she’d have plenty to say to Phyllis Carter the next time she saw her, which was likely to be the following morning. She’d go to the farm a little earlier than usual and catch Phyllis before she left.
For now, all she said was, ‘He’s where he usually is. In the front room playing with his wireless set.’
