Rule Britannia (28 page)

Ben’s face fell. He looked up at Colin for support, but none was forthcoming. Anything different in diet or daily routine stimulated Colin. Besides, he was never hungry. “Let’s try it,” he said delightedly, “let’s pretend we’re in kennels. Let’s all get down on our hands and knees and be hounds yelping, and Madam and Dottie can put the biscuit into bowls and feed us.”

One word was enough for Ben, and curiously enough for the older boys too. A series of yelps and howls filled the kitchen, the prancing of feet, the pawing of hands, until Mad, her hands over her ears, suddenly ceased laughing, and Emma, following the direction of her eyes, saw she was looking towards the window.

“Who are those men?” Mad said. “What are they doing?”

The yelping stopped. Everyone ran to the kitchen window and looked out. Two men were walking through the small wood bordering the drive. One of them had an axe, another a saw.

“Those aren’t marines,” Mad said, “they’re not in uniform. Andy, go and find out what they want.”

There was something familiar about the figure with the saw, tall, burly, humped in a leather jacket.

“It’s Mr. Libby,” said Emma, astounded, “and that man he has to help him. I’ll go and speak to him.”

She ran down the stairs and out of the side door into the yard. Andy was already halfway up the drive. He paused when he saw Emma was following him. He too had recognized the landlord of the Sailor’s Rest.

“He’s by the load of logs Joe stacked for the Trembaths,” he told her. “You remember, the load they were to have in exchange for the milk and eggs.”

Emma strode through the undergrowth, but Mr. Libby took no notice of her. He and his assistant were throwing the logs into sacks.

“Excuse me,” Emma said, “but my grandmother wants to know what you are doing.”

The landlord stared down at her. He looked unkempt. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble was gray on his face.

“You’ve more wood here that you can use yourselves,” he said. “Time some of the rest of us had a fair share of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma replied, “but those logs are promised.”

“Oh yes?” he retorted. “Well, first come, first served. It’s everyone for himself these days. Why should you people up here keep warm while we go cold? Carry on, Harry, fill up those sacks, and then we’ll come back for more.”

“Mr. Libby,” persisted Emma, “I’ve told you, those logs are promised. We’re only waiting for Joe and Terry to return. They’re promised to the farm.”

The landlord laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, but derisive, harsh. Gone was the obsequious manner, the tone adopted for the selling of Californian wine.

“You won’t see your lads in a hurry,” he said, “nor will Peggy Trembath see her husband Jack. People who obstruct the Queen’s highway get punished for it, and when they aid and abet sabotage they deserve to be shot as well.” He paused a moment in his task of axing a sapling. “And we are the ones to suffer,” he said, striking his chest, “honest, law-abiding citizens with our custom taken away, water and electricity cut, livelihood gone, all because of people like you. All very well for someone like your grandmother with a load of money tucked away in the bank. What about me? No customer has been near my place since the regulations came into force.”

“Money’s no use if you can’t get to a bank,” said Emma. “We’re no better off than you are—worse, in fact. You can at least get drunk on Californian wine.”

Which was an error, for his face turned dark with anger. “You’d better watch your tongue,” he said, “or those of us who feel badly treated will take more than wood. We’re not getting free milk from Jack Trembath’s farm, or free eggs, like I hear you do, and if those who deserve to be punished by the authorities for sabotage get off scot free, we’ll take the law into our own hands and raid the farms while the farmers are away. We could all do with some of their pigs and sheep and cattle, to keep our own families from starving. Tell that to Mrs. Peggy Trembath when you see her.”

He drove his axe into the sapling ash. It crashed and fell. Emma put her hand on Andy’s arm, who had crouched to spring. “No…” she whispered, “no…” One false move, and Mr. Libby’s threat would turn to action. He would go to the farm and seize any animal he wanted, just as he was taking the wood now. There would be no one to stop him, for Mick was hardly bigger than Andy. She looked over her shoulder, and her grandmother was standing in the drive below, saw in hand.

“Hullo, Mr. Libby,” she called, “there’s another ash sapling just ahead of you. Want me to help you?”

The landlord of the Sailor’s Rest tripped over the root at his feet and slowly turned. Embarrassment, resentment, self-righteous indignation all struggled for priority in his bearing, in his face. The memory, too, of cider sold in the past, and what might be sold yet in the days to come.

“No call for sarcasm,” he said. “Some aren’t so lucky as others. We’re living in hard times.”

“I know,” said Mad. “I wasn’t being sarcastic. I’ll help you saw up the first tree if you want me to. The question is, without your car, how can you get it back down the hill unless you drag it? Did you bring some rope?”

Mr. Libby was silent. His assistant shuffled the leaves at the root of the tree.

“I tell you what would be fair,” said Mad. “You take as much wood as you can carry for your own household, and when things return to normal, if they ever do, let me have a barrel of cider, free.”

The soft answer turneth away wrath—but did it? Resentment, and being caught in the act, still left its imprint on the landlord’s face.

“It’s all very well to talk of things returning to normal,” he said. “What this country needs is a dictatorship, I’ve said it for years, and with the Americans to back us up we’d get it. I wouldn’t want to blow up their ship. They’ve never done any harm to me, only brought custom, which I’ve now lost.”

“Oh, I agree with you,” said Mad. “We all stand to lose as things are, but as to a dictatorship, it depends who does the dictating. They certainly have the whip hand at the moment. Now, do you need any help, or shall we leave it to you?”

Training behind the bars of several smart pubs had left its mark. The customer was always right.

“We can manage, thank you,” said Mr. Libby gruffly. “We’ll only take the one tree, and one sack of logs.”

“Fine,” Mad replied, “then I’ll only expect a small barrel of cider.”

She turned away, whistling, followed by Emma and Andy. When they reached the garage Andy stopped and said, “How could you let them get away with it? I’m so boiling with rage I can hardly speak. You’d only to whisper and I would have dashed up to my chimney on the roof and got them both with… with you know what.”

“Yes,” Mad answered, “I know. But it didn’t help much last time, did it, so I thought I’d have a try at community relations instead. I doubt if that will help much either. Not with Mr. Libby. Besides…” she paused, and added, “I really should have let him have all the wood he wanted without striking the bargain about the cider.”

“Why?” Andy asked.

“It would only have been fair,” she replied, “considering what we did to him the other night.”

Andy frowned. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “This is the first time Mr. Libby has been here, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Mad, “but it won’t be the last if he finds out that Emma and I and your godfather helped the farmers chuck tractor-loads of manure outside the Sailor’s Rest about half an hour before the explosion blew up the American ship.” She looked Andy straight in the face. “So, you see, we’re all of us guilty of some crime or other, and we none of us want to be found out.”

Conflicting emotions fought for supremacy in Andy’s eyes, just as they had done in Mr. Libby’s. But emotions of a different kind. Certainly not embarrassment, nor resentment, nor self-righteous indignation. Possibly wonder, and then envy.

“Was that what you were doing,” he said slowly, “when we thought you were talking to Dr. Summers in the music room, and Dottie told us not to interrupt but to have our supper and go straight to bed?”

“Yes.”

Andy sighed, his shoulders drooped. “If only you’d taken me with you,” he said at last, “if only I could have been there.” Then he looked up, straightened his shoulders, and remembering he was the man of the house with Joe and Terry away he added, “You’ll have to take me next time. You can’t do without me now.”

Mad laughed and put her arm round him as she might have done Terry, the pair of them walking towards the side door, while Mr. Libby and his crony shouldered the felled sapling up in the wood, and the sack of logs, and made their way out of the gate onto the road. How does she get away with it, wondered Emma, how does she manage to slide over difficulties and ward off antagonism, and never get caught out herself? Mad isn’t one of the meek, like Nurse Bennett, like Dottie, she doesn’t go through life unnoticed, smoothing sickbed pillows or baking bread, she’s like a bulldozer churning up unwanted earth, pushing everything out of the way. Talk about dictators, Mad was the supreme example, Mad was the one to order everyone else about and command obedience, but not overtly, not so that you actually noticed; in fact, very often people thought they were doing what they wanted to do when they weren’t at all; they were bluffed into it, they were conned. Oh Pa, come back and save us, stop things happening, don’t stay in Brazil…

Turning on the radio for the news was routine but no help at all. Nothing of significance was mentioned. Monetary talks were taking place in various capitals. The Cultural-Get-Together movement had established headquarters in every county town and was to work in close cooperation with the Minister of Education. The date for the visit of the President of the United States, co-President of USUK, had not yet been decided, but plans were well advanced. Meanwhile, units of the American Forces were on guard at Buckingham Palace.

“Haven’t you noticed,” said Mad, “that with every news bulletin about USUK there’s more emphasis on the U.S. and less on the U.K.? I suppose it’s the same in the newspapers and on television, but cut off from both we just don’t know. More serious, this battery is fading, and so is mine upstairs. We shall have to ration ourselves to listening once a day.”

“It won’t help much,” Andy told her. “Batteries fade even if you don’t use them.”

“Mr. Willis makes his own radio sets,” Sam announced. “Radio’s his hobby when he isn’t beachcombing. I bet you anything you like his battery hasn’t faded.”

“There’s our answer.” Mad surveyed them all triumphantly. “Taffy will keep us up to date. He shall be our link with the outside world.”

Emma’s heart sank. She had hoped they had done with Mr. Willis. It was certainly very kind of him to go to the various farms around and help with the milking, but it would have been best to leave it at that. There mustn’t be a repetition of that awful lunch and him falling asleep drunk in the cloakroom.

She hoped her grandmother would forget what Sam had said, but her hope was in vain. They busied themselves all afternoon with sawing and wood-gathering, for most of the cooking was now being done by a reluctant Dottie on the music room fire, as slates were starting to fall inexplicably into the old grate in the basement, and the music room fireplace devoured fuel like a hungry furnace. It must have been half-past five, and the boys were installed in the kitchen munching Dottie’s home-baked bread, when Mad, whom nothing seemed to tire, turned to Emma in the library and said, “Do you suppose they’ve finished milking yet?”

Emma, who had flopped onto the sofa, missed the significance of the question. “Oh yes,” she replied, “they usually milk around four. At least, at the Trembaths’.”

“In that case,” said Mad, “let’s you and I slip down to Taffy’s hut and see if he is there, and if he is we can hear the six o’clock news.”

Emma stared, aghast. “In the dark?” she exclaimed. “Through the wood to that sinister little hut? Oh no, darling, we can’t.”

“Why ever not? We’ve both got torches, and anyway it’s a fine night. We’re never likely to find him at home in the daytime, with all the farm work he’s doing, and who knows, he may have picked up all sorts of things from walking about the countryside. He might even have heard rumors about where they’ve taken the boys.”

Emma looked closely at her grandmother. It wasn’t the six o’clock news she wanted to hear; it was because of the chance, the slim chance, that Mr. Willis might know something, have heard a whisper, that would bring a ray of hope about Joe, about Terry. The good humor, the energy, the joking with the younger ones, was all a bluff. More than Dottie, more than Emma, Mad herself was worried sick about her boys.

“All right,” Emma said. “I’ll get my things on and come with you.”

There was no necessity to tramp all the way across the plowed field and the grazing ground to reach the wood. There was a gap in the hedge bordering the Trevalan paddock that gave easier access and was more sheltered, even if the path was less direct, because of overgrown brambles and ivy and fallen stumps of trees. I don’t like it, Emma thought, we shouldn’t be doing this, someone might spring out and strangle us, no one is safe today after what has happened, with Mr. Libby and that man on our own domain, carrying axes. What if others should do the same, in this no-man’s-land, by night?

Mad strode ahead, her torchlight flashing oddly among the trees, and she surely had no nerves at all, or else it was a form of magic, a sort of withcraft. Emma prayed that Mr. Willis wouldn’t be there, and they could retrace their steps at once, but as they drew nearer she could smell the smoke. There was a thin wisp of it coming through the queer stovepipe thing he had for a chimney, and, more proof positive still, a dim light showed through the window, candlelight, or it could be a paraffin lamp. The last time she had come here it had been with Wally Sherman, poor Wally Sherman, who had held her hand along the twisting path, and somehow the memory of this, and the knowledge that he was dead, not just dead through illness but blown to pieces, made the walk more frightening still. He hadn’t known that time was running out, any more than Corporal Wagg had…

“He’s at home,” said Mad, “there’s a light. Shall we look through the window?”