Rule Britannia (12 page)

“Emma,” she said, “it’s about Corporal Wagg. He’s off duty and he’s just been here.” She sounded troubled and was speaking in a whisper. “He kept asking questions about Terry, and I couldn’t say he was missing. I just told him I hadn’t heard a word from Terry since last night and he must be at home.”

“Don’t worry,” Emma replied. “Terry’s all right. We know where he is. I can’t explain over the telephone. I’ll come down and see you in the morning.”

“Oh, thank goodness… But Emma, the trouble is, Corporal Wagg believed what I said and is on his way to your place to see Terry.”

“Well, too bad. He won’t find him.”

“I thought I’d better warn you… He was quite nice, actually, and said he was sorry for what happened last night, and hoped there’d be no hard feelings. I don’t think he wants to pick Terry up, or anything like that, I believe he just wants to shake hands and apologize.”

“All right, Myrtle. Thanks.”

Apologize! A bit late in the day, and Terry in hospital with a broken leg. Not that slipping down the cliff had been the corporal’s fault, except indirectly. Emma decided to keep Myrtle’s information to herself. When the corporal turned up she would deal with him, and indeed take pleasure in telling him that Terry was in hospital under the doctor’s care.

Corporal Wagg must have thought better of his good intention, for he never appeared. The rain ceased and the short November afternoon turned dim. Emma lay on the sofa in the music room with her eyes closed. Bevil Summers had rung to report that Terry was “comfortable” in hospital, which was something, but the house felt empty without him.

It was about half-past five, curtains drawn, fire burning, when Joe came into the room. He was deathly pale.

“Emma,” he said, “come with me.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head. He could not speak. Softly he opened the front door and beckoned Emma after him. It had stopped raining, the clouds had parted, the evening was fine and clear. He took her hand and led her to the lookout and down to the plowed field beyond. She saw then that there was something lying a few yards distant, a dark shape, spreadeagled. Joe, still holding her by the hand, led her to the body. It was Corporal Wagg. He was lying on his back, dead, with one of the lethal arrows between his eyes.

They stood there side by side staring down. Joe did not let go of her hand. The arrow’s jagged tip must have pierced some vital point behind the corporal’s right eye, because part of the eye lolled out, horribly, and the blood that had flowed at first was now congealed. Neither of them spoke. Emma tried to remember when it was that Myrtle had telephoned. Was it half-past three, was it four? Corporal Wagg had been on his way, having already left the farm. He might have wandered about the fields first, he might have gone onto the main road from the farm track and then cut back. He was off duty. Time was no object.

Emma looked away from the body and up at Joe. She felt strangely calm.

“He was coming to the house,” she said. “He wanted to apologize to Terry for the fight.”

“How do you know?”

“Myrtle told me. It was Myrtle on the telephone. I didn’t tell anyone, there seemed no reason why I should. When the corporal didn’t turn up I thought he had changed his mind. It didn’t seem to matter much.”

“You could have told me. I would have come to meet him. It wouldn’t have happened then.”

“I know. I didn’t think.” Numbness that had been shock was wearing off. Horror was seeping into her, taking over.

Although it was dark the visibility that had been poor all day had cleared now that the rain had ceased. Lights showed from the warship at anchor, she no longer seemed so far away. Across the bay the lights of Mevagissey shone brightly too, as they always did on a fine night. The beam from the lighthouse glowed, then faded, then glowed again.

“When he doesn’t return to camp it will be reported,” said Joe.

“Yes.”

“Some of his mates may have known where he was going. He may have told them he was thinking of calling on Myrtle at the farm.” Joe bent down and gently, very gently, seized the arrow and tried to pull it away from the corporal’s eye, but it wouldn’t move. “I can’t shift it,” he whispered, “it’s too deep.”

“Oh God,” said Emma, “what are we going to do?”

The night was becoming clearer all the time, and the lights from the warship seemed brighter too. In the first glimmer of morning the plowed field would be like an open map beneath a helicopter flying overhead.

“We’ve got to get him away,” said Joe, “we’ve got to get rid of his body. I might dig a pit up in the shrubbery, where there’s all that dead wood lying around.” He stared up at her, his face haggard.

“No,” said Emma, “it wouldn’t be any use. Once he’s missing, and they come for him, surely they’ll bring tracker dogs. Wouldn’t they trace him as far as here, and then to the shrubbery, no matter how deeply you dug a pit?”

“Perhaps they would,” said Joe. “I don’t know…” And then, in desperation, “We’ve got to tell someone. We’ve got to have proper advice. Couldn’t you ring Dr. Summers?”

“No… Joe, we can’t. Look what he’s done for Terry today, lied, taken the blame on himself. Besides, how could he help with… with this?”

So little time… Mad would be wondering where she had gone, where Joe had gone. And a further problem lay ahead. There was Andy to consider. Andy must be their prime concern.

“Joe,” she whispered, “how did he do it? Could he have let fly at random and never even seen the corporal?”

Joe shook his head. “No,” he said grimly, “Andy’s aim is far too accurate. He knows what he did all right, no mistake about that. My guess is that he came out to the pile of logs by the wall, just for practice maybe, and then spied Corporal Wagg coming across the field, and took aim and got him.”

“Oh God…” whispered Emma, “oh God…”

It seemed to her then that the events of tonight, last night, the preceding days, had all been foredoomed. They dated back to that first panic shot by the unknown marine who had taken fright at Spry. Since that fatal moment the world about them, safe, secure, had become threatening to all the boys, to Terry, to Sam, to Andy, even to Joe himself; born to insecurity, then loved and cherished, the shadows whence the boys had sprung were steadily closing in on them again. And Mad, with the power she had over all of them, had not helped. She had encouraged fantasy, built up their imaginations, and this, for Andy certainly, had now proved his undoing. How could a child tell truth from falsehood, reality from make-believe, when she who had nurtured him from babyhood had fed him with images of her own creation, phantoms from a greasepaint world? The fascination of her puppet show had driven Terry to bravado and pseudo-gallantry, and Andy to murder.

“It’s Mad’s fault,” said Emma. “Andy’s not to blame.”

Joe stared at her, outrage in his eyes. “How can it be her fault? She doesn’t know.”

Emma gestured, hands spread out, and even as she did so, the gesture instinctive, she realized that this was what her grandmother did when urged to explanation, that her stance was the same, feet a little apart, chin jutting forward, and it was like being imprisoned in a net—or could it be a shroud?—from which there could never be escape. Not for her, at least, but surely for the boys?

“It’s the way she’s brought us up,” said Emma, “you, me, all of us. Now we’re going to start paying for it, first Terry, then Andy.”

The outrage in Joe’s eyes turned to pity, then disgust. “There’s a saying, isn’t there, about biting the hand that feeds you? I never thought you’d say a thing like that. What we’ve discovered here is beastly, yes, and we’re both of us shocked, you specially, I can’t blame you, but don’t put the fault on her…”

He bent down once more, and seizing the corporal’s body by the heels dragged it from the plowed earth to the brambled ditch beneath the wall. The bare head bumped the soil as it was moved, the arrow stuck between the eyes jerking to and fro, and Emma, staring, hypnotized, thought this was a man once, breathing, smiling. Last night he held Myrtle in his arms and made love to her down on Poldrea beach. Vomit rose in her throat, and retching she spat away both venom and fear. We fear the living, not the dead, the body lying in the ditch is nothing, a husk, whatever indignities we inflict upon it now doesn’t matter, the flame is quenched.

“I know what we must do,” she said, “we must tell Mr. Trembath. He’s embroiled anyway, because of Myrtle, should the marines go to the farm tomorrow and ask questions. But Myrtle mustn’t know Corporal Wagg is dead or what has happened. She’d break down at once, under questioning.”

Joe thought for a moment or two, then nodded. “He’s got his Land Rover. We could lift the body into it, for a start. Cover it with manure maybe. Then decide what to do. I think you’re right, Emma.” He looked back towards the house. “What’s the time?”

Emma glanced at her watch. “Just on six.”

“I’ll go to the farm,” Joe told her. “They’ll be sitting to tea now milking’s over. I can easily get Mr. Trembath outside, tell him one of the ewes in lamb has strayed from their home pasture, anything. Then I’ll bring him up here. You’d best nip back to the house, and if Madam asks for me tell her the same story about the sheep.”

He strode off at once, keeping under the lea of the hedge that defined the Trevanal boundary. Emma watched his figure disappear over the rim of rising ground, and looking down once more at the body in the ditch she tried to imagine how she would feel if instead of Corporal Wagg, barely known, it had been Joe lying there, or Terry. You don’t suffer, she thought, until it hits you, or you may suffer but you have to train yourself to stand it, that’s why doctors remain calm, and nurses too; but for their training they’d crumple. And that’s why Mad is brave in times of stress and keeps a bold front, because she is acting a part, she is trained to be someone else, and you can’t touch the core underneath. She went into the house just as Colin and Ben were coming out of the library on their way to bath and supper.

“Hallo,” said Colin, “where’ve you been?”

“Just for a breath. Do you know what Andy and Sam are doing?”

“They’re in the playroom, I think. At least Sam was. He was starting to write a letter to Terry to cheer him up in the hospital. All right, coming, Dottie.”

Colin sighed, as though the impatience of elderly adults was a burden to be borne with resignation, shrugged, raised his eyes to heaven and wandered into the kitchen after Ben like an old man of ninety. At least he knows nothing, thought Emma, he could never have kept it to himself. She went into the library. Her grandmother was watching the news.

“If only that man wouldn’t wear that appalling spotted tie,” she exclaimed. “Somebody ought to tell him it clashes with his hair. They’re making the most of the explosions, I knew they would. Turn it off, Em. I can’t take anymore.” She threw herself back in her chair and removed her glasses. Then she stared at Emma. “Anything wrong, darling?”

“No…” Her voice wasn’t right, though. Unconvincing.

“Oh, yes, there is. You’re not feeling faint again, are you?”

“Of course not. Just a bit tired.”

Joe would soon be at the farm. What if Mr. Trembath wasn’t there, had gone to Poldrea, and Myrtle answered the door?

“There
is
something wrong,” said Mad, leaning forward. “Emma, what is it?”

Very well, then. Take it, cope with it, you are responsible, Andy’s future is in your hands. Am I my adopted brother’s keeper? No…

“Something terrible has happened,” said Emma. “Joe and I have just found a body in the field outside the wall. It’s the body of Corporal Wagg. He’s been shot between the eyes with one of the arrows. The arrow is still there, so is the body. Joe has gone down to the farm to tell Mr. Trembath.”

She realized she was trembling all over, but her voice was steady. Speaking had brought relief from tension. Mad looked puzzled. The expression of someone slightly deaf, who hasn’t heard distinctly. But this time it was not an assumed expression, it was genuine.

“Corporal Wagg?” she repeated. “That marine who was over in the stables when they were all here. Do you mean he is dead?”

“Yes,” said Emma. This time she spoke more slowly. “He is lying dead out there in the field, shot by one of the arrows you gave Andy.”

This time the message got through. Perplexity gave way to wonder, wonder to realization. But not to horror. That was the frightful thing.

“Then Andy obviously did it,” said Mad. “How careless of him not to bring back the arrow, and why didn’t he come and tell me?”

Emma looked at her grandmother incredulously. Had the shock been too much for her? Was this the beginning of senile decay?

“Mad,” she said, “that corporal has been murdered, and by a child of barely twelve years old. Do you realize what this means?”

Mad gestured impatiently, spread her hands. “Of course I do, what do you take me for? Don’t be so melodramatic. We have to keep our heads, and thank heaven Joe has kept his. He couldn’t have done anything more sensible than to go down to the farm and get hold of Jack Trembath.”

“That,” Emma told her, “was my idea.”

“Good for you. A pity it couldn’t have happened when Bevil was here, then he could have coped. He and the beachcomber between them. We can always call Taffy in if Jack Trembath wants extra help, which he well might do. It’s not so easy to dispose of a body.” She got up and began to walk up and down the room. “No use just dumping it over the cliff as if he had fallen, because of the wound from the arrow—shot between the eyes, did you say? Was there an awful mess?”

Emma did not answer. She just went on staring at her grandmother.

“Darling Em…” The hand on her head, the caress, the warmth in the voice was loving, sympathetic, yet curiously detached. “Why not have a stiff drink? There’s some brandy on the sideboard in the dining room. I may need it later, but not yet.”

Emma walked like an automaton into the dining room and poured herself a brandy in a sherry-glass, neat. The taste was revolting. She hated brandy. It gave her a sensation of strength all the same. She went back to the library.

“What now?” she asked.

“Go and call Andy,” said her grandmother. “The little ones should be in the bath by now.”

The brandy had brought courage as well as strength. If Andy was to be cross-questioned, wouldn’t he break down, cry, possibly deny all knowledge of what had happened? Wouldn’t it be better, perhaps, if nothing was said, if everyone, she, Joe, Mad, all pretended ignorance, and then in the morning, when the body was no longer there, mightn’t Andy think it had been a dream, that he had imagined it all? They were not geared to such a situation. Neither she nor her grandmother. Maybe they should get in touch with the doctor after all.

“Mad,” she said, “you must be terribly careful what you say. I know he’s not sensitive, like Sam, but on the other hand he may be absolutely terrified of being found out. He might try and run away, he might…”

“Oh darling, do get a move on, time is all-important.”

Emma went through to the boys’ quarters, but she did not trust herself to penetrate the middle boys’ bedroom.

“Andy?” she called.

“Yes?”

“Come through to the library, will you? Just you, not Sam. Mad wants a word with you.”

Coward-like, she did not wait for him. She went on ahead, and returning to the library sat down on the sofa, pretending to look at the
Radio Times.
She glanced up furtively as Andy came into the room. He did not look any different. His hair was more rumpled than usual, perhaps.

“Did you want me for something?” he asked.

“Yes, darling,” said Mad. “You’ve given poor Em an awful fright. She went out for a breath of air by the lookout and saw Corporal Wagg lying dead in the field with one of your arrows stuck in him. She came in to tell me and I had to give her some brandy.”

Andy turned to Emma in consternation. “Oh, Emma, I am sorry. I didn’t want you to see. I was going to wait until Joe came up to the playroom and then explain to him what had happened.”

Emma did not say anything. There was still some of the brandy left in the sherry glass. She reached out for it and drank it down.

“Why didn’t you come and tell me?” asked Mad.

“I couldn’t very well,” explained Andy. “Colin and Ben were just coming through to you here, and I didn’t want them to know any more than Emma. So I told Sam, as we couldn’t find Joe. We tried to pull the arrow out but it was stuck hard. I got him in one shot, and it must have killed him at once, because he didn’t seem to be breathing.”