Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (54 page)

‘If you knew how I felt—'

‘Feelings won't bring Robert back. What we have to do is harness all that – all those feelings – into making everything whole again. That's what.'

Lily nodded, silent, still smoking. Kate had said the same thing to her, in different words, but it still made no difference, for the truth that she was facing was that she loved Robert now more than she had loved him when he was alive. She had wanted to be married to get away. He had wanted to marry her because he loved her. Now she realised how much she had loved him – and he was gone.

High above, although not as high as they had been when they had turned for home, the Dornier continued its slow but still steady flight
.

‘We have sufficient fuel?' the captain asked. He had hoped it was a rhetorical question since one of the many strengths of the Dornier was its long-range ability
.

‘We had enough fuel, sir,' his second in command replied. ‘We seemed to be containing the leak we sustained as a result of the hit to the starboard engine – but now we're losing it from somewhere else
.'

‘Have we enough to get home?'

‘Not with what we're carrying, sir. We're going to have to jettison our bomb load
.'

‘Reichsmarschall Goering won't like it! We waste not and we want not!'

‘Reichsmarschall Goering won't need to know about it!' his subordinate grinned back
.

‘With him on board?' the captain nodded back at their bomb-aimer, their unfriendly Fascist as they called him, the only card-bearing Party member in the crew. ‘Fat chance. ‘

‘We're going to have to jettison, sir, come what may
.'

‘Then we'd better find a safe place to do so
.'

They were fast approaching the place that was going to be selected by their bombardier as safe – or certainly as far as he was privately concerned suitable
.

That target lay only twenty miles south of them, half hidden in a fold of frost-covered hills
.

Jack Ward arrived late for the Eden Park party, detained on business concerning the arrest of the other leading players in Basil Tetherington's dangerous drama, which happily for everyone had failed to unfold. Once inside the great hall of the house, he was delighted to see the extent of the Christmas decoration, including a huge tree that had been felled on the estate and beautifully decorated by the most artistic members of the Nosy Parkers.

He had with him a small box that he carried most carefully, leaving it with his coat and hat in the nearest cloakroom while he went to look for the person to whom he wished to present it. On his way across the crowded room he was greeted by Major Folkestone who was sitting at a table on the edge of the dance floor talking to Lily.

‘Happy Christmas, everyone,' Jack called as he walked by.

‘Thank you, sir,' Lily replied.

Major Folkestone excused himself for a moment.

‘A thoroughly satisfactory result all round I'd say, wouldn't you, sir?' the major said, as they walked along the side of the dance floor.

‘Not bad at all, Major,' Jack replied. ‘The Old Man's certainly pleased. As he should be, by God.'

‘I've got something I need to discuss with you when you have a moment.'

‘Will it keep till tomorrow, Major? This looks like a good party.'

‘Certainly, sir. I wasn't going to discuss it tonight. No fear. It can most certainly wait. It only concerns young Lily back there.'

‘She was engaged to Kate's brother if I'm not mistaken,' Jack said with a discreet backward glance. ‘The poor chap who was killed rescuing that child.'

‘That's the girl. She wants to volunteer for SOE. She can speak French, and German, to a degree.'

Jack stopped and frowned at Major Folkestone, then looked back at Lily who was sitting smoking a cigarette and swinging one long elegant leg in time to the band.

‘Interesting. I wouldn't have said she was the type.'

‘My thoughts precisely, sir. Funny thing is, they were also hers.'

Jack frowned at the major again, awaiting an explanation.

‘I said the same to her, said, “I didn't think you
were the type.” And she said, “No sir, no neither did I. Until now.”'

Jack thought about what the major had just told him, looked back at Lily once more, who was still smoking her cigarette and watching the dancers, and then nodded.

‘Knows what she could be letting herself in for, does she?'

‘Should do by now.'

Jack thought a moment more then nodded again, this time finally.

‘Very well. We'd better go into it in a bit more detail with her, wouldn't you say? Bring her in to my office tomorrow afternoon around tea time. We should have all recovered from the party by then.'

Jack wandered on, scouring the room for his target. Finally he saw her, being returned to her table by Scott who had just finished dancing with her yet again. Poppy seemed to sense his presence because although she was looking in the opposite direction entirely, she suddenly turned round and met his eye. Jack smiled, nodded and crooked his little finger for her to come over. Poppy promptly excused herself.

Jack signalled to her to go round the dance floor on the opposite side to him and meet him over by the Christmas tree.

‘I have something for you,' he said. ‘I was going to hang it on the tree, but then when I saw you, I thought I might as well give it to you in person.'

‘That's very kind of you,' Poppy replied. ‘I'm afraid I haven't had time to do my Christmas shopping yet.'

‘Perfectly understandable – I didn't have to shop for this. Come along.'

Poppy followed Jack out of the great hall and into one of the side passages that led to the cloakrooms, thinking of that night not so long ago when she had been in a similar position in a large house, but that time she had been in grave danger and Jack had been her rescuer. She was able to smile at the memory as she followed Jack once more to the gentlemen's cloaks into which he now disappeared, thinking of the strange and odd and completely unpredictable way her life had been turned quite upside down by that chance meeting.

Jack now re-emerged and handed her the carrier box with which he had arrived.

‘I haven't even wrapped it,' he grunted. ‘But I don't think you'll mind.'

Poppy knew before she opened the top of the box that she had now placed carefully on the floor. She looked up at Jack, who was frowning back down at her.

‘Open it, for goodness' sake,' he muttered. ‘Get a move on.'

Poppy folded back the two flaps of the strong cardboard box and saw the nose at the end of the beautiful long doleful face she had missed so dreadfully.

‘George!'

His long tail wagged furiously now as he recognised his mistress.

‘He's put on a bit of weight, I'm afraid. He's a bit of a doer, your George.'

‘We'll soon walk that off.' Poppy laughed. ‘We'll walk that off in no time at all.'

‘He's put something else on, too. You won't be able to see if you're holding him.'

Putting the dog at her feet, Poppy stood back to take a good look. George yawned in excitement then shook himself, and as he did so Poppy could see that Jack had taken off his old collar and replaced it with a brand new thick leather one resplendently coloured in vibrant red, white and blue, with a decorative bulldog's head hanging from its identity ring.

‘Oh, Jack!' Poppy laughed. ‘Jack, that really is most elegant. Thank you. Thank you very much.'

‘No, Poppy, not at all,' Jack growled, sticking his pipe in his mouth. ‘Thank you. Now I'm going to rejoin the party, and if you know what's good for you you will too.'

The Dornier, still weighed down by its unused high explosive bombs, was now no more than one dance away, no more than a tune. But far below the Flying Pencil there were others who were not at play but at work – a new unit, working a brand new installation not more than a mile from Eden. And it was a local man on watch who first heard the drone, who sounded the alarm to his unit and who finally pinpointed a raider homeward bound
.

Actually it was Scott who was the surprise hit of the party, most especially after he had reappeared with a large cloth bag tied tightly at the neck with a coloured cord, which he produced at the table at which now sat Poppy, Kate, Eugene, Marjorie and Billy. The bag immediately aroused Billy's interest.
Scott had hardly sat down before Billy grabbed it and tried to undo it.

‘Time they altered the call-up age,' Scott told him, narrowing his eyes in mock anger at Billy. ‘High time they reduced it to
fourteen
.'

‘But what's in it?' Billy demanded. ‘Is it a present for someone?'

‘That depends on how people see it,' Scott replied. ‘It also depends a lot on my lip.'

‘Your lip?' Billy frowned deeply. ‘What's it got to do with your lip?'

‘Everything,' Scott said, having undone the cord and produced from the cloth bag a shimmering highly polished silver cornet.

‘Wow!' Billy gasped. ‘Can you play that?'

Scott certainly could. He introduced himself to the band, talked through a few numbers, jotted down some chord sequences for the pianist, guitarist and bass player, and blew a few perfect and clear notes by himself to make sure his lip was in, as he had explained to Billy – then tapped the band in to ‘Falling In Love With Love'.

One chorus in and everyone who hadn't danced before now got up and danced. By the time Scott's cornet was soaring over the band with a slow and heartbreaking version of ‘September Song', the great hall was a mass of people dancing, and those who weren't dancing stood at the foot of the bandstand just to listen to the wonderful music.

‘“I Can't Get Started”!' someone called.

‘“Pennies From Heaven”!' someone else suggested.

‘“I Can't Get Started”!' the first voice insisted.

‘The man's right,' Eugene agreed, getting up on
the rostrum and taking hold of the microphone. ‘Play it like Bunny. Play it like Berigan and I'll croon it like Crosby.'

All over the hall the candles in their jars sputtered and danced and flickered, as Eugene sang and Scott played.

‘I have the area, Captain,' the bombardier's voice came through the captain's headset. ‘I have found a good place for us to drop.'

‘It needs to be soon and it needs to be now,' the captain replied. ‘You are quite certain this is just land? No buildings? No houses, no village?'

‘Just land, captain. What they call downland I believe
.'

‘Are we over it now?'

‘One minute to target, sir,' the bombardier replied, looking through his sights, hoping to get some sort of image of the huge grand house he believed now lay almost directly below them. But just as he was taking perfect aim, something hit the tail plane of the Dornier, tearing half of it away. The plane shook violently, shuddered and started to tilt alarmingly
.

‘Flak!' the captain called as he looked out of his side window. ‘Anti-aircraft battery ten degrees west! Seems to have taken out our rudder! Losing control fast!'

More shells hit the already stricken craft, knocking it first sideways and then upwards as a shell exploded directly under the left wing, holing the fuselage and letting a sudden great gale of air into the cabin
.

‘Prepare to bail out!' the captain called. ‘Prepare to jump! Go on! Jump! Jump everyone! Everyone jump!'

But not until he had opened his bomb doors, the bombardier crouched over his sights decided. If they were going down then let them feel the full and mighty force of
his bombs. Let them be blown to the next life by the might of the great Reichsmarschall's air force
.

‘Bombs away!' he called, but no one was listening. No one heard his cry because they were already earthbound, floating down on umbrellas of silk. The bombs had plunged past them in the dark, but they had fallen straight down, while the airmen who had already bailed out were being gently blown southwards, away from the targeted house far below
.

‘Bombs away!' the bombardier called again joyously, as he too prepared to bail out. But it was too late for him. Another shell smashed into the aircraft directly below his position, killing him instantly and causing the plane to explode seconds later. The sky was filled with a huge orange fireball that seemed to hang in the air before fragmenting to fall in myriad pieces on to the downland below
.

The band had just finished playing. Scott was swinging his cornet on one hand while wrapping his free arm round Eugene's shoulder, who was taking an extravagant bow to wild and happy applause, when everyone stopped still as they heard the unmistakable crump of a bomb exploding somewhere nearby. Everyone either threw themselves to the floor, to take cover under the tables, or ran to the huge double staircase to shelter under the overhang. One or two even made it down to the cellars. There was silence everywhere.

There had been no siren, at least not one anyone in the hall had heard, yet that was definitely the sound of a bomb they had heard exploding.

Everyone waited, hands over heads or ears, many people embracing whoever it was that lay
nearest to them. The absolute silence continued and because it was absolute one or two people began slowly to look about and wonder. There was no damage to the house, at least none that was visible.

Eugene, Scott and Major Folkestone were the three who had refused to take cover, running instead to the great front doors that they had flung open to see what if any the damage was. In the clear frosty moonlit night they could quite clearly see where the bomb had fallen, down by the lake where it had destroyed many of the ancient oak trees, leaving a huge crater in the ground. The fact that the waters of the lake were still greatly disturbed on a windless night suggested that if any other bombs had fallen, that was where they now lay – at the bottom of the ornamental water.