London Dawn (32 page)

“But to take him to Dunkerque. To take him into harm’s way.”

“It was I who took them.” Lord Preston gripped his son’s shoulders. “It was I who ordered them to join me. If they had refused I would have cast
Pluck
off from the pier and sailed to France alone.”

“It was foolhardy.”

“We got the soldiers onto the warships, didn’t we? Got them away from the Germans and safely home? If we’d all held back because of old age or fear, our army would be behind barbed wire by now. Others took the risk. Why shouldn’t I?”

Robbie’s face remained grim. “I doubt there are any other lords or Members of Parliament out there in the small ships. Mum said Churchill was aghast that you’d crossed the Channel in a sailboat and were hanging about off the Dunkerque beaches.”

“Let Winston make the speeches. He’s jolly good at that. I’ll do the little things.”

“Hardly a little thing to be fetching soldiers off a beach that’s being bombed and shot to pieces by Stuka dive-bombers, Dad.”

Lord Preston put a hand to his son’s cheek. “I thank God you’re alive. I prayed day and night. And somewhere in another part of England another father is thanking God because the son we hauled aboard
Pluck
is standing alive before him now too. So no more of this. Your return is a cause
for celebration, not recrimination. Look at my crew.” He extended a hand toward Owen and Skitt and Eva and their grimy faces and clothing. “They have been at Dunkerque with me. They have been saving the lives of the soldiers on the beaches. They have never left my side or let me down. Honor them.”

Robbie hesitated. Then he nodded. “You’re quite right.” He looked at Eva and the two men. “Thank you for bringing my father home alive. And thank you for bringing the boys back to Britain in one piece. God bless you.”

Skitt bowed. “Our pleasure, Lord Robert.”

Lord Preston rang up his wife while the others scattered to various bathrooms in the large house and scrubbed a week’s dirt off their bodies. The cook hustled about in her kitchen preparing a hot meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Robbie called army headquarters and was granted leave to stay on at Dover Sky with his father for forty-eight hours. Clean clothes were found for everyone, and Robbie dressed in tennis whites while his colonel’s uniform was laundered and pressed. After high tea they sat together in the library. Robbie spoke about the fighting that had begun like a lightning flash on May 10 and the mad scramble of retreat that followed the ferocious battles. The others told their stories about sailing
Pluck
to and from the beaches at Dunkerque and the different soldiers they had taken on board. Lord Preston made his way to his bedroom after several hours of talk, but the others fell asleep in their chairs.

Eva and Owen were the last two awake.

“All my lights are going out,” whispered Eva, fighting to keep her eyes open.

“Linger with me a bit longer,” urged Owen.

“I can’t, you know.”

“May I come over there and kiss you goodnight?”

“Aren’t you too tired to budge? I fear I am.”

“No. My motivation is high.”

“Well then, pay me a visit, my darling Englishman.”

“I will do…shortly.” But Owen never pushed himself out of his chair.

Toward dawn, light lanced between two curtains and found its way to Eva’s legs, up to her hands loose in her lap, and to her face. Owen woke about the time it had flowed over her fingers to her dress. He watched it move until it finally caught fire in her hair and leaped into the air and was
gone. She seemed to feel his gaze and opened her eyes, looking directly at him.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Dreaming.”

“With your eyes wide open?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I just have. Lawrence of Arabia said it made a man that much more dangerous, you know, for him to dream with his eyes open, because he was far more likely to make his dreams come true.”

“Yes? And what are your dreams?”

“You.”

“Me what?”

“Just you. That’s the sum of my dreams. Well, that and going to sea on a great ship.”

“
Pluck
was a great ship.”

“She was. But I’m thinking of something a bit larger.” She shook her head. “Don’t talk to me about the war. I want the war to go away or at least have the good sense to remain on the other side of the Channel.” She stretched out her hand. “Come, poet laureate, take me out for some air. I want to hear the robins.”

Owen and Eva stepped through the doors and began to wander over the grounds of the summer estate. Fairburn saw them from a distance and lifted his cap. They followed the slope to the swan pond, where several of the majestic birds were drifting about on the water.

“I wish I had breadcrumbs,” she said, watching them.

“I can fetch some from the house.”

“Don’t you dare.” She closed her hand over his. “I want you with me every minute.” She smiled. “You may have dreamed with your eyes open like Lawrence of Arabia, but mine were shut tight. It was frightening. Faces and red streaks of flame, planes swooping and firing their guns, ships blowing up. No, you stay with me, Sir Owen. The rest of the world will rush upon us soon enough and snatch you away like high tide.”

“That’s not likely to happen.”

“Of course it is. Now it’s a war. The German fleet will be scratching and scraping to get out to sea and the British fleet will be only too eager to come to blows with them when they do. And where will you be? Right in
the middle of it. So indulge me and walk with me and let’s keep the mad rush of a world war at bay for as long as possible.”

“Right.”

“But before we move off.” She glanced about them and put her arms around his neck. “A kiss, my darling man, my hero of Dunkerque.”

“I wasn’t—”

She brushed his lips with hers. “You were.”

As the kiss ended, Eva asked, “Do you ever wonder if other lovers have met here by the pond and done just what we’re doing?”

“Oh, I’m sure of it. Dover Sky has been here quite some time.”

“So here we are, the latest in a long line.”

“Albrecht was here. Before he married Aunt Cathy. So other Germans have preceded you.”

“How pleasant.” She kissed him again. “The nights in Dunkerque were magic. With all the fear and danger, they were still something out of a legend. Let’s add the morning of swans to that.”

“I thought you wanted to walk.”

“I did. But now I prefer the company of the swans. And you.”

He ran his hands through her hair. “Like sunlight.”

“I was a mess on
Pluck.”

“A fine and glorious mess, you were.”

“I was dirty and unwashed and my hair was like strands of frayed rope.”

He laughed. “How differently girls see things from boys. You were beautiful.”

“I don’t like hearing about myself in the past tense.”

“That’s easy enough to rectify. You
are
beautiful.”

“
Danke.
Now speak to me properly. The way a poet does.”

“ ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’ ”

“Go on.”

Owen continued to recite the sonnet.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

“Ah. Finish it, Owen.”

“How do you know there’s more to the poem?”

“The Nazis weren’t in charge of all my education. I know some Shakespeare. He always ends his sonnets with a couplet.”

Owen stroked his thumbs slowly and gently underneath her blue eyes. “ ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’ ”

“Do you believe that? That a woman can live on and on in a poem?”

“Of course I do. Hasn’t she? Won’t you?”

“I?”

“Two poems with your name on them are flitting about England. Now that we’re through with Dunkerque, I expect there will be a third.”

Eva leaned her head against him, and he embraced her tightly.

“I look forward to hearing your next poem about me,” she said into his chest.

“I look forward to dreaming it up and writing it.”

“Will it take you long, do you think?”

“Oh, no. A few more minutes are all I need.”

She laughed softly. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”

“I could substitute Shakespeare again.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Eva would, were she not Eva call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which she owes

Without that title. Eva, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

“Ah. Do you not like Eva then?”

“Eva is Eve. It means life. I love your name. The lines from
Romeo and Juliet
were merely to hold you over until I have come up with a better poem.”

“You are a Shakespeare who belongs to me. I suppose a girl can wait for her Shakespeare.”

A swan suddenly lifted itself up, spread its white wings wide, hung poised on the water a few moments as they watched, and settled itself back on the surface of the green pond.

“I think that will be in the poem,” he said, pressing his lips to her hair.

“I like the idea of being compared to a swan.”

“I like the idea of a swan being compared to you.”

“But how on earth can you do that? I don’t have wings.”

“Of course you have wings.”

“What a crazy Englishman you are. I would love to stay here all day, a thousand days, and listen to you say crazy, beautiful things to me.”

“Let’s work on a plan, Eva.”

“
Ja
,
ja
, we must certainly have a plan. Nothing goes ahead without a plan.”

“You like to make fun, my German girl.”

“They’re coming across the Channel, aren’t they?” she asked him abruptly. “The Nazis and SS and
Luftwaffe
will come across the Channel now, won’t they?”

He didn’t answer.

“They won’t let the Channel stop them, will they,” she continued. “What are a few miles of water to a plane? Or a ship?”

He rubbed his hand up and down over her back. “We have some time.”

Robbie was still with them, dressed in his clean uniform, when Skitt, Owen, and Eva sat in the library alongside Lord Preston, Fairburn, and the household servants and listened to the prime minister’s speech on Tuesday, June 4. The evacuation had been completed—more than three hundred thousand British and French troops had been rescued—and the whole country breathed a surprised sigh of relief and wonder. Churchill rose to the occasion in the House of Commons.

The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the
death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

7

June, 1940

Camden Lock, London

Paris surrendered on Friday, June 14. Kipp and Ben’s squadron left France the following Tuesday, June 18. Their wives were informed that the two pilots were alive and well and had left the battle-torn French Republic. Victoria ran down the street to Caroline’s house, crying and out of breath, where she threw herself into the other woman’s arms.

“Did they ring you?” Victoria could hardly speak. “Did they tell you?”