Evacuee Jeffrey Fraser and his two friends must cope. when Marwell Village, intended as their place of safety, is shaken when a German bomber finds it.
Jeffrey, Ginger and Arthur, are separated from their parents and must survive in a strange culture after being evacuated from London's inner city. As the war rages and the bombs of the Blitz show no sign of stopping, Ginger finds a stray kitten and appeals to the others to help find a home for it. They are willing, but Jeffrey needs to deal with the death of his best friend as well as a less than satisfactory billet and the attentions of a bully who has it in for him. Arthur has to contend with an accusation that he burned down a haystack.
Jeffrey gets a job at a farm after seeking, and failing, to get the farmer to take the kitten. Later, the boys discover an abandoned mill tower and decide to make a home for the kitten there. Ginger rejects this, but they use the place as a club house where they can keep their shrapnel souvenirs and Arthur's cherished incendiary bomb. Everything changes when a downed German airman takes Ginger prisoner and demands food. Jeffrey is caught stealing a chicken from the farm, but convinces the farmer to help in a plan to rescue Ginger. Will his plan succeed? Or fail?
Bomber Overhead
by
Jim Francis
Smashwords Edition
Copyright James A. Francis 2011
Bomber Overhead
Chapter 1
The night sky above Marwell was filled with stars. The moon had set. All seemed peaceful although the Air Raid Siren had sounded half an hour previously. The residents of Marwell were still unaware that a stray German bomber winged its way through the sky towards them. Jeffrey lay awake in the place where he shared sleeping space with Gordon. As with many young people during the Blitz, this place was in the cupboard beneath the stairs in a semi-detached house.
Jeffrey had been wakened by Gordon's snoring, which was not unusual, and as always it made Jeffrey want to kick Gordon's head. This would have been easy as the two of them slept head to foot in the cubby-hole as it was called. Jeffrey's place was against the wall next to the gas and electric meters, his head to the far end. Gordon had the spot near the door. Jeffrey's feet were so close to Gordon's head that kicking it would have been easy.
He had three reasons for not kicking him. Firstly it would be unkind. After all, could Gordon help it if he snored? Secondly Jeffery was a sort of visitor in the house and Gordon was the only son. Mrs. Burnett, Gordon's mother, didn't like her son being upset unless it was she who upset him. Thirdly Gordon was older and bigger than he was and had a tendency to thump Jeffery at the slightest excuse. Apart from all that, Jeffery knew he wouldn't get a fair hearing from Mrs. Burnett after the ensuing rumpus. At least, that's the way he had it worked out.
As he turned on his side and pulled the blanket over his head, he heard the deep, heavy pulsed drone of the twin engine German bomber as it came closer. Brrum, pause. Brrum, pause. The sound was peculiar with no mistaking what made it. Jeffery's best friend, Peter, said his father had told him that an aircraft floating in the air tried to spin in a direction opposite to the spin of its propellers. The Germans built their twin engine bombers with engines that spun the propellers in opposite directions, and this cancelled the unwanted spin. It also cancelled the sound from the engines at regular intervals. That caused a pulsed engine noise. British aircraft, with a different system, had a steady drone. Jeffery didn't understand any of it too well, but he understood enough to know that the sound he heard meant that the approaching aircraft was a German bomber.
And bombers like the one overhead were the reason why Gordon and Jeffery slept under the stairs. Of course, everybody knew that being under the stairs wouldn't protect them from a direct bomb hit, but it did protect from shrapnel and flying glass from blown out windows.
"Gordon," he whispered, "Gordon. There's a bomber coming."
Honk! Snort! Crump! Snuffle! Gordon slept on.
The bomber groaned from a heavy load of bombs. Peter had also told him that the bombers came in over the coast to the north or to the south carrying their loads and then swung around for the run over London. Every night, Peter said, they tried to take a different route so that the anti-aircraft guns couldn't concentrate in one spot or in front of the city. Only the ones that got lost flew over Marwell. Jeffery didn't know if any of this was true, but it sounded reasonable.
The war and the destruction it caused saddened Jeffery. People talked of the German army preparing an invasion and he worried that the German soldiers would come. They'd already overrun much of Europe -- Poland, France, Denmark, Belgium, Holland. The war was the reason he was in this house. Jeffrey was an evacuee, evacuated from London in case there was bombing like what was going on now. His present billet at the Burnett's was his third in just over a year.
Mr. Burnett, the householder, had joined the Home Guard. Once a week he marched and drilled, along with other local men, on the path running along the edge of the gravel pit behind the house. Jeffery liked to go out back and watch them march. They pretended the broomsticks held stiffly on their shoulders were rifles. Mr. Burnett said real rifles had been promised in a month. Two of the men used their own shotguns, shouldering them as best they could for the drill. The men hated being watched at their broomstick drill and always shouted at him to go away.
Even though he was only eleven, Jeffery wanted to fight if the Germans invaded. Gordon owned a small book with a picture of an anti-tank rifle on the front. It didn't look that big, and he longed for one of those. Then he'd be able to shoot at the German tanks if ever they arrived. That would help make an end to the war. With the war over, he'd be able to go back to London again and live with his mother and father and his brothers and sister.
A wave of happiness swept him at the thought of life before the war. His parents were far poorer than most Marwell people, but he'd been happy then. He wasn't very happy these days.
At first he'd been billeted with a nice middle-aged couple who'd been very kind to him and his sister, but the man got himself into trouble with the police because of Black Market dealings and they'd been moved. He hated the memories of the second billet and always tried to push them out of his mind. He'd been very glad to get away from there, but didn't know why they'd been moved.
Now, with the third move, he'd been separated from his sister. They lived on different sides of the village and didn't get to see each other much. His sister, being older, went to a different school. His two older brothers who'd attended different London schools had been evacuated separately to other parts of England.
Now his mother and father had been split up. He had a new baby sister and his mother had been moved out into the countryside for safety during the air raids. His father stayed in London working as a postman during the day, and keeping fire watch at night during the raids. His night job was to put out fires from any incendiary bombs that dropped on the Post Office building roof. For a long time neither parent had been able to visit and he missed them badly. He never heard any news of his brothers. Right at that moment, though, he was worried about the approaching aircraft.
It sounded as if the bomber was almost overhead. Now the anti-aircraft guns mounted on flatbed rail cars that ran up and down the railway tracks behind the houses across the street opened fire. Bang! Bang! Bang!
He knew that searchlights must be sweeping the sky showing circles of light on the night sky as the beams swung, crossing each other like invisible scissors as they tried to catch a bomber between the unseen blades of light. He'd watched them one night as he'd hurried home from scouts. That was the night an aerial mine floated down by parachute, exploded and destroyed Gospel Hall. In the morning children rushed to the site looking for shrapnel. Any found was supposed to be turned over to the police, but nobody ever did that. Jeffery went, too. Poking around in the tall grass with a stick, he saw a nice piece of metal that was curly and twisted.
As he bent down and picked it up, a voice from behind said, "What'cha got there, Fraser?" He shuddered inwardly as he recognized the voice. It was Tommy Thorne's.
"Nothing," he said. He tried to palm the metal, but it was too large for his hand.
"Don't tell me, nothing." Thorne said shoving Jeffery so hard that he sat down. "Give it to me, I'll hand it over to the police."
"No you won't, you'll keep it or sell it."
"So what!" He put a foot on Jeffery's chest and pushed until Jeffery was lying on his back. Then he leaned over, grabbed Jeffery's wrist and twisted until the hand opened letting the piece of shrapnel drop. Thorne picked it up. "You're a liar, Fraser. I'm gonna let it pass -- this time. Don't try it again or you'll be sorry." Then he turned and strutted over to where other children were searching.
Now, again, a bomber was coming.
Suddenly the sound of the bomber's engines changed to a higher note as if it were lighter and flying faster. Jeffery knew what the different sound meant. Its bombs had been released. He clenched his fists and waited. Then four explosions, one after the other, rocked the house and Gordon woke.
"Stop making noise, Jeffery. I'm trying to sleep."
"Not making noise. That was bombs."
Gordon shook his head, and now he was wide awake could obviously hear the anti-aircraft guns. "Were you awake? Did you hear the bomber?"
"Couldn't sleep. You were snoring."
Gordon's leg came up and kicked him on the side of the head, but not hard because it was a difficult thing to do as Jeffery was now sitting up. "I don't snore and don't you say that I do or I'll give you a thumping in the morning. What do you think it was? A Heinkel, a Dornier, or a Junkers?"
"I don't know. They all sound the same to me."
"Of course they do, you're so stupid. I'm going back to sleep." Then he turned over on his side and soon snored as loud as ever.
The guns stopped firing and the aircraft's faint hum faded into the distance. Jeffery pulled the covers over his head, stuck a finger in his ear trying to block out Gordon's snores and fell asleep.
Chapter 2
Jeffery had no idea how long he'd been asleep when the doorbell ringing woke him. This was shortly followed by a loud banging on the front door. He heard noises from the back room where the Burnetts slept during air raids. Soft footsteps sounded in the corridor as someone wearing slippers shuffled past. Then the front door opened and he heard a man's voice followed by Mr. Burnett laughing and saying. "Do I need my broomstick?" The man at the door laughed too as he answered. "No."
The door closed and Mr. Burnett went back to his room. Shortly he came back again followed by Mrs. Burnett and he heard her say, "Here's your torch. Put your rain shoes on and wrap up warm. Be careful."
The door opened and closed again. He knew Mrs. Burnett had gone from the door into the kitchen because, although her slippers had made no sound, he heard her fiddling around in there. He must have dozed again because the next thing he heard was Mr. Burnett's voice saying, "We caught them."
Luckily, by then Gordon was no longer snoring. Jeffery leaned over and put his ear to the side of the cupboard. Mr. Burnett was telling his wife where he'd been and what had happened. The anti-aircraft guns on the railway tracks had damaged the bomber that dropped the bombs and searchlights had picked up two parachutes floating down. The Home Guard had been called out to help track the parachutists down. It hadn't taken them long to find the two cold and shivering German airmen hiding under trees in Marwell Woods. One of them was wounded and they'd surrendered without a struggle. Then he heard Mrs. Burnett tell Mr. Burnett to go into their room and she'd make a nice cup of tea and bring it to him. After that there was nothing more to hear so he lay down and went back to sleep.
The next thing he knew, Gordon was jabbing him with a foot and telling him to get up and not be lazy. He obeyed and by the time he'd pulled on his clothes and exited the cupboard he heard the sizzle of bacon frying. It smelled delicious, but he knew he wouldn't get any. Even Gordon didn't get bacon for breakfast. Mrs. Burnett always said she gave everybody's bacon ration to Mr. Burnett because he was the working man. Jeffery suspected that she had her share after he and Gordon had left for school and Mr. Burnett had left to catch his train up to London and the printing firm where he worked. He wouldn't have said no to bread fried in the bacon fat, but Mrs. Burnett saved that for other purposes. Both Mr. Burnett and Gordon were also given large packages of sandwiches. Jeffery was told he didn't need any because his school provided a mid-day meal.
****
A slanted, drizzly rain fell that Thursday collecting on Jeffery's face and running down his nose to drip off his chin as walked to school. He wore a ragged old raincoat that came from he didn't know where, but he was glad of it. His short trousers left his legs bare from the knees to the top of his wool stockings with the holes in the heels and nobody willing to mend them. The running shoes on his feet were worn out and the old cap on his head had once belonged to Gordon. Mrs. Burnett had decided he needed a cap because she didn't want him carrying a cold back to her house, "If you don't mind."
He'd lived at the Burnett's for six months now and he'd never once started one of the frequent colds in the house. All the colds since he'd lived there had arrived when Mr. Burnett brought them back from London.
He felt hungry, and that was normal. His breakfast of two slices of white toast thinly spread with margarine, all he ever got on a weekday, never satisfied his hunger. Sometimes, rarely, on a Sunday he might get an egg, or a scrape of marmalade or jam. Not that he hadn't been used to eating bread for breakfast before he'd been evacuated and often at other mealtimes too. But back home in London the bread slices had been thick and whole-wheat and often spread thickly with fat drippings from the family's Sunday roast -- when they'd been lucky enough to have one. At times meat juice jelly could be found at the bottom of the bowl holding the dripping. The lucky ones who reached the bottom first got to spread jelly on their bread and dripping. Otherwise salt and pepper got sprinkled on the dripping and that was good too. When there was no roast and no fat there'd be a thick layer of margarine also dusted with salt and pepper. Now with food rationing, eggs and jam were both rationed and scarce so all he was given was the bread and margarine without the salt and pepper as Mrs. Burnett didn't believe in that.
Of course, Mr. Burnett, as a working man, needed his food and couldn't be allowed to go without.
Over Jeffery's shoulder as he walked to school was slung the cord sling of the cardboard box holding his gas mask. In his right hand he carried a sack full of paper salvage he'd collected by going house to house and knocking on doors asking for any old paper. People were patriotic and passed over anything they had.
The last house he'd gone to the night before had been hidden behind a high fence. As he went through the gate, a large dog rushed up, barked once, and grabbed the arm that carried the sack in its mouth. A worried looking woman followed by a man had rushed out of the house and hustled the dog away. This disappointed Jeffery because the dog hadn't hurt him and didn't seem angry. He would have liked to have made friends with it. But all turned out well. The woman took him into the house and gave him lemonade plus some homemade biscuits. They'd had a lot of paper and cardboard too, so everything worked out fine.
He was just past the railway station; about half way to school he heard a shout from behind. "Jeffery! Wait!"
The voice belonged to Arthur, his second best friend. He stopped and waited. Huffing and puffing Arthur ran down the side street from The Green, the open piece of grassland that belonged to the village. Arthur was medium height and stocky. He often seemed rushed as he tried to keep up with everybody, which he always managed. When he reached Jeffery they walked side by side.
"Well 'allo Arthur. What's doin', then?"
"Nuthin' much."
"Hear the bombs last night?"
"No. I was asleep, as usual." He grinned weakly. It was a standing joke that Arthur could sleep almost anywhere, anytime. "Most of the others heard them, though. They talked about it all over breakfast. One bomb dropped behind the manor. About half a mile away, in a field."
Arthur was billeted at Marwell Manor, a large, walled-in house that had been turned into a hostel for difficult to billet evacuees These were those who, for one reason or another, had not fitted in at any of the other billets where they'd been placed. Arthur's first billet had been at a farm with Peter, but the billeting officer had moved him over some trouble. Then at his next billet he started wetting the bed, something he swore he'd never done at home. But in each house where he'd been placed it happened again and he got turned out. Funny thing was he'd never wet the bed since being billeted at Marwell Manor.
What the two boys really wanted to do that morning was to go where the bombs had fallen to search for shrapnel. They never even considered it, though, because Headmaster Perkins could be quite nasty to boys who skipped school; he never stinted the cane or ordering that pupils be 'kept in'.
All at once, Jeffery noticed something. "Arthur! Where's your gas mask?"
Arthur gave a little toss of his head. "I forgot it."
"No you didn't. You left it behind on purpose."
"So what if I did? Nobody says anything about them these days. I hide it at school. Teachers don't carry theirs, why should I carry mine? I hate carrying the damn thing. "
"Don't swear. Old Mrs. Burnett makes me carry mine She makes her Old Man and Gordon take theirs, too. She'd really give it to me if I went out and left it at home."
He felt a twinge inside as he said home. The Burnett place wasn't home. Home was in London with Mum, Dad and the others. It seemed such a long while since he'd left there and he wondered if he'd ever get back. Now with the Germans in France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Norway bombers came over most every night. Bombs were dropped on London and other cities and people were getting killed or wounded and homes were being destroyed.
"I wish I could be up at The Manor with you lot, Arthur. I hate living at the Burnett's and I hate Gordon. He's always hitting me and he tells his mother all sorts of lies."
"Lies! What sort of lies?"
"He says I steal food from the kitchen when he's the one who takes it. And he plays silly tricks and blames me."
"What sort of tricks?"
"All sorts of stupid things. Last week he put bacon grease on the kitchen door knob and Mr. Burnett got it all over his hand."
"Was he angry?"
"No. He wasn't but Missus was. When Gordon said I'd done it, she sent me to the cupboard and told me to go to bed. I missed ITMA on the wireless."
"Maybe they'll throw you out and you can come up to The Manor."
"Not likely. She gives her old man most of my meat ration and they don't want to give that up, or the rest of the stuff they pinch out of my rations."
The food problem was hard to take. Mrs. Burnett served him tiny portions of fatty meat and a few potatoes and sometimes a plop of watery cabbage. That's why he always looked forward to Sunday. For some reason she always gave him a large helping of Yorkshire Pudding.
Arthur slipped a small package of greasy newspaper from his pants pocket and passed it to Jeffery. "Here. I grabbed this for you."
Jeffery took it eagerly and tore the paper away. Inside was a folded piece of fried bread covering a slice of crisp streaky bacon. His eyes lit up and he took a large bite. "Thanks," he garbled as he chewed. I can make it to milk-time, now."
Milk-time was the mid-morning, small bottle of milk all the children were served courtesy of the government. A second milk break came in the afternoon.
As they got closer, more children hurried along on their way to school, girls as well as boys and most of them Marwell children. They saw nobody they knew particularly well. At the corner where they turned to get to the school, they stopped for a moment to watch for Peter. Near the same age as both Jeffery and Arthur, Peter was in a class one year ahead. But the three were good friends from London. Peter was billeted on a farm.
*****
For some reason, when they were evacuated from London, the train had not taken them to Marwell railway station, but to Rucksford, a larger town nearby. There double-decker buses like the London ones waited for the children. But to Jeffery's surprise, and probably to a lot of the other children also, the buses were painted green and not the familiar London red. Later he learned that all London Transport country buses were painted green.
They had marched onto the buses in a column of twos. An unknown teacher boarded first, directing the line on the left into the downstairs area, the one to the right upstairs. Jeffrey was on the right as was Peter. Arthur went downstairs. The busses traveled through the centre of town, then up a steep hill, and then along country roads. Finally they reached the village of Marwell and a school set in the middle of a large field. There the children marched off the buses and back into the column of twos. The column was guided into the school, down a long corridor and into the school hall. Inside the hall, gathered to one side, small groups of local citizens waited. At the far end of the hall, below a small stage, officials were seated at a large trestle table. The children were marshaled into lines opposite the table. The teachers who traveled with them went over and spoke to the officials. Then the selection process began. As names were called, local people stepped forward to select the children they wanted in their homes.
One of the first called, a farmer, quickly chose Peter and Arthur and hustled them away. By the time all the locals had made their choices, Jeffery and his sister still waited as a London a teacher had promised Jeffrey's mother that they would be kept together. People willing to take two wanted either two girls or two boys, not one of each. But they weren't the only ones, others also waited. Too few locals had turned up for the selection.
The leftover children were again lined up in pairs, this time Jeffery paired with his sister. Off they went again, this time on foot accompanied by a teacher and a billeting officer. They marched along the village streets seeking other billets. Jeffery began to feel a tiny bit of dread of the future, although in some ways everything still felt like a fantastic adventure. The billeting officer knocked on doors, offering the children up to the householders. Once again Jeffery and his sister failed to be chosen, at least until almost all were settled. Most householders wanted girls only and were reluctant to accept one of each or even two boys. But eventually they were settled.
As for the two chosen by the farmer, while Arthur hated the farm, Peter loved it. He always hurried from school back to the farm because there was work to do. Seven days a week the farmer got them up early in the mornings to clean out the horse stables or feed the chickens and sometimes gather the eggs. Arthur didn't care for the animals and feared the chickens most because there was one big cockerel that chased him all the time, pecking at his bare legs. They never seemed to bother Peter.
Peter's family had two children, both boys, but his older brother was fourteen and now worked in his parent's grocery store. Jeffery knew Peter badly missed his family, perhaps more so than other evacuees, even though it seemed as if they all felt sad, lost and troubled at times.
****
Soon Jeffery and Arthur reached the gate at the front of the school and waited there for their friend. But there was no sign of him. Peter hadn't been to school since Monday, and they worried he might be sick. They decided not to wait any longer and entered the school grounds and turned to the right. Girls went to the left.
They went all the way around the 'L' shaped, two storied, red brick, building that housed Marwell Senior Secondary School. At the back, a large playground was divided by a wide, white, painted line. The northern half sitting along the short arm of the 'L' was for the girls only; the other half was for the boys. Although most of the lessons had mixed classes, the girls had their own entrance, the boys theirs.
They joined the boys who were huddled up against the building as they tried to get as much shelter as possible. The girls were always allowed to go inside early, but unless the weather was very bad with heavy rain or snow, the boys had to stay outside until the bell rang. The light drizzle that fell this day wasn't considered bad weather, They watched enviously as the girls went in as soon as they arrived. A friend, Ginger swung around the corner, her red-gold hair safely tucked beneath a satin scarf. She saw them and waved. They waved back to the jeers of the others.
Shortly after that, the bell rang and they rushed to get inside. Still Peter hadn't shown up.
Chapter 3
Inside, Jeffrey and Arthur, along with the other boys, hung their outerwear in the boy's cloakroom. From there they went to the assembly hall, which ran for two thirds the length of the playground, taking their places near the centre of the assembly. In a Logical arrangement, the older children were at the back and the younger ones in front. Girls formed rows to the left, boys to the right. All faced the stage. A narrow space in the centre separated the two groups. The teachers stood to the sides or rear. On the stage at the far end of the hall, behind a lectern stood Headmaster Perkins, a short man with beady, red-rimmed eyes. Eyes that swept a stern gaze back and forth across the children.
Mr. Perkins started each school morning the same way. He waited until the bored students began to chatter before he acted. This morning was no different. When the murmuring began the short bamboo cane he always carried slammed down on the lectern. Crack!
"Silence!" The loud, bull-like bellow coming from a man his size often startled new students when they heard it. Most pupils obeyed instantly, but usually a few continued to speak. After a wait of about ten to fifteen seconds, the cane descended again making the same loud noise and the bull-like bellow came again. "Silence, I said." Almost all the chatter stopped then. One student here, and another there, carried on talking knowing that there would be a third and final order. Disobedience of that invited retribution later in the form of a sharp blow with the cane across the offender's fingers. Crack! "Silence!" The third command stilled every tongue.
Mr. Perkins' beady eyes scanned the rows of pupils, seeking to observe lip movement. He spotted none and sighed. A possible twinge of disappointment furrowed his brow before he spoke.
"To start today, I have a message for those of you who are evacuees." He paused to allow his eyes to rest on one evacuee after another. Then he continued. "Peter Ross ran away from his billet earlier this week. The silly boy ran away back to London because he said he missed his parents. Well, I want to warn the rest of you not to do anything so foolish. On Tuesday night a bomb fell on his parent's house where the family apparently preferred to stay rather than go to a shelter. They are now all dead, Peter, his father, his mother, and his brother George. The rescue workers pulled Peter out alive but very badly injured. He died later in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Evacuees should take note; the government of this country went to a great deal of trouble and expense to move you out of the city to a place of greater safety. They did this to keep you safe from the threat of heavy bombing. Keep that fact in mind, and stay where you've been billeted. Your foster parents are working very hard to make you comfortable."
Nobody spoke. Later that day Jeffery decided that all the teachers must have already heard the awful news. But right at that moment he felt sick. The bacon and fried bread that Arthur had given him churned in his stomach. His legs became weak and wobbly and his head seemed to swim. Peter and his brother George were both dead. It was hard to believe. George had not come to Marwell because he'd been just over the age of fourteen when the war started, too old for the evacuation. Jeffery remembered him well from a time before the war when a group of boys had been packed into a classroom waiting for a nature film to be shown. He had been seated next to George. George had pulled out a pocket watch and asked. "Do you know how to tell the time?" When Jeffery said, "no," George had explained how the hour was divided into sixty minutes and that into five minute segments, which were further divided into half and quarter hours. It was so simple that Jeffery had wondered why he'd not understood how to tell the time before.
But it was Peter who'd been his real friend. Many times they'd gone to the swimming pool together, or caterpillar collecting in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and sometimes sneaking onto the Underground to ride the Inner Circle. The last summer before the war they'd had a glorious time.
Then the evacuation order had come, and the bus that met the evacuation train had dropped them off at the strange school where Farmer Selkirk had picked Peter and Arthur from the crowd and hurried them away. Peter never complained about the hard work at the farm, but Arthur often did. Not, as far Jeffrey knew, to anybody other than himself and Peter. There was really no one else to complain to. It wasn't long before Arthur started wetting his bed, and then he got blamed when a haystack caught fire and burned to the ground. Peter, however, was never unhappy about the work. Everybody on a farm worked hard he said. But he missed his family, and when the blitz started he worried they'd get hurt in the air raids. What, he kept asking, would he do if they all got killed by the bombing and left him alone in the world.
And now theyd all been killed. Knowing that made Jeffery's head feel funny and he thought he was going to fall over, so he sat down on the floor. Arthur looked down and then knelt beside him.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Jeffery said. "My head feels funny, like it's spinning around and I want to be sick and maybe I'm going to cry."
"Oh! Don't do that," Arthur said, meaning both the sick and the cry.
Then a tall figure loomed over them. "You two boys! Why are you hiding down there talking?" Miss Peskett, a slim, older teacher had spied them over the heads of the girls and rushed over. "Mr. Perkins," she called. "I have two boys hiding on the floor and talking."
"Please, Miss. He doesn't feel well," Arthur said.
"Nonsense! If he were unwell his foster mother wouldn't have sent him to school." Miss Peskett looked upon all evacuees as a lower breed and made them do what she called 'toe the line' or else.
"Send them down to me," boomed the voice of Mr. Perkins. "They will stand up here on the stage and I'll deal with them later."
"Get up, Jeffery Fraser." Miss Peskett demanded. "Get up and go down to the stage."
"Please, Miss," Arthur started again, but she cut him off.
"You too, Arthur, go down to the stage. You know very well that you are not to speak during assembly."
The harsh voice and behaviour of Miss Peskett settled Jeffery's dizziness but not his desire to cry. He climbed to his feet.
"Are you feeling better?" Arthur asked.
"Will you please stop talking Arthur, and go down to the stage as you've been told. Go!" Miss Peskett's voice became shrill and her arm shot out, straight and stiff, a bony index finger pointing towards the stage.
Heads bowed slightly in shame, the two boys, Arthur in front, walked down the narrow gap between the boys and the girls as the glaring eyes of Miss Peskett followed their progress. The equally glaring eyes of Mr. Perkins watched as they approached the stage. When they reached the front Mr. Perkins pointed with his cane to the left hand side of the stage.
"Come up and stand over there facing the back of the stage. Don't talk."
They climbed the steps up to the stage and walked to the rear as they'd been told. Mr. Perkins watched them until they came to a stop. He then carried on with the rest of the normal assembly procedure. He made a few minor announcements dealing with slight matters of general misbehaviour on the part of students. They were to stop it. Then everybody bowed heads as he said a short prayer for the fighting men. After that everybody was required to recite The Lord's Prayer. They'd all had to do it, even the Jewish brother and sister who'd ended up evacuated to the village where nobody apparently knew who they were and which school they'd come from. Until that had been sorted out, they'd been treated like everybody else.
The prayer over, Mr. Perkins walked over to right side of the stage. There an old gramophone sat on a small table. He started the turntable whirling, lifted the arm and put the needle onto the record. A scratchy version of the national anthem rang out. Then, more or less in time with the recording, students and teachers sang "God Save the King". The anthem over, Mr. Perkins cracked his cane down again. The booming voice called out "dismissed," and the assembly broke up. The students traipsed off to their various classes. All, that is, except Jeffery and Arthur.
Once more Mr. Perkins rapped his cane down onto the lectern, and then he turned to the boys. "The two of you will follow me." With that he went down the stairs to his office. He pointed to the wall next to the office door. "Wait there," he said and entered his office. Ten minutes later the office door opened wide and he came out again. He stood to one side, and with a brusque backward sweep of his hand, waved them in.
He still held his cane, bending and flexing it as, with his head tilted back, he looked down his nose at them. Jeffery felt a tiny shiver of fear, and thought it possible that Arthur felt something similar.
"Now tell me, what was so important to talk about that you defied my order to be silent?"
Arthur spoke up at once. "It was Peter Ross's death, sir. Peter was Jeffery's best friend. When you said that him, his brother and his mum and dad had all been killed, he got dizzy."
Mr. Perkins switched his gaze to Jeffery. "Is that true?"
Jeffery swallowed hard. "Yes, sir! I thought I was going to be sick."
The headmaster's gaze softened just a tiny bit. He looked at Jeffery for what seemed to be a long time, and then he looked at Arthur. Saying nothing he turned and softly placed his cane on his desk. When he turned back to them he looked as stern as ever. "Very well," he said, "You may go."
Chapter 4
The two boys hurried from Mr. Perkins office, rushed up the stairs and halted outside the closed door of Miss Peskett's classroom. They knew the class had started. Neither smiled when they saw the closed door. Jeffery looked at Arthur, who shrugged and nodded. Jeffery knocked timidly on the door and opened it. Miss Peskett stood on the platform behind the large table that served as a desk. She glared at them.
"You're late. You know I don't allow late comers into my classroom. Wait outside."
"But Miss…." Arthur began. Miss Peskett did not allow him to continue.
"Don't argue! Wait outside! And don't talk out there."
They backed up closed the door and stood against the wall in silence. One escape from Mr. Perkins' cane in a day was enough. A couple of minutes of not speaking passed like an hour. Jeffery mouthed slow, silent words at Arthur. "Old Peskett will want us to know what she's teaching today."
"Ginger takes good notes," Arthur mouthed back. "She'll tell us if Old Peskett tells or sez anything new. Not likely she'll do that, though, she's already told us all she knows, and that ain't much."
Another five minutes passed. Arthur faced the wall in Miss Peskett's direction, put his thumb to his nose and waggled his fingers. Jeffery clamped a hand across his mouth to suppress his laughter. Then, getting control, he joined in the game. Right at that moment, Mr. Jones, the geography teacher, walked around the corner and the broad smile that first crossed his face changed quickly to a frown. The boys stopped. Mr. Jones walked past and said not a word. As he disappeared around the far corner, they sighed in relief. Thereafter, for the remainder of their banishment, they stood silent and moved only to shuffle their feet.
The rest of the morning passed without further trouble. The morning milk break came and went. The next class was Mr. Jones' geography class. Mr. Jones, as a young teacher, had travelled to many parts of the Empire setting up schools for indigenous populations in various countries. He'd he spoke of these places in class about the places he'd visited, and his geography lessons always held the students interest. He was a pensioner who'd come out of retirement to replace one of the many teachers who'd left and joined the armed forces.
Lunch followed the end of Mr. Jones' class. In the usual way, the girls split from the boys, each group going to a separate classroom where lunch would be served. None of the boys had any idea of what went on in the girls' dining room.
A large trestle table was stored in a small storage room behind the blackboard. Jeffery and Arthur helped to carry this into the classroom and set it up on one side near to the teacher's desk. The teachers ate their lunch at the desk. When the trestle table was ready, they took their seats and waited.
Shortly, three volunteer serving women pushed two trolleys carts into the room. One trolley held food in large metal pots, and the other was loaded with plates and dishes. They placed the pots on the trestle table and piled plates and dessert dishes at the near end. First one of the women served lunch to Mr. Jones and another male teacher. Before starting to eat, Mr Jones gave a slight nod. That was the signal for the boys to politely line up for their lunch. Each took a plate and a dessert dish from the pile and paraded past the food with plate and dish held out. The women ladled stew onto the plate and prunes and custard into the dish. Jeffery hated the custard served at the school because of the ground coconut in it. Daydreaming, as he often did, he failed to notice the custard ladle nearing his dish of prunes until the last moment. He snatched his dish away. Plop! The custard splattered down onto the table. The woman serving jumped in surprise and glared at him. "Oh! I'm sorry. I don't like custard," Jeffery said. The woman stared up toward the teachers, but if they noticed they said nothing. The woman ignored the spill and Jeffery went over and sat beside Arthur who'd already half-finished his lunch.
"Rough luck on Peter," Arthur said. Are you going to miss him a lot? I think I will."
"I suppose." Jeffery's hunger disappeared and he wished Arthur had not reminded him of Peter's death. Then, remembering the sparse fare awaiting him at the Burnett's, he forced himself to eat all his stew and prunes.
After lunch, with the trestles put away and the rain stopped, they went down to the playground. Students were not permitted to stay inside during lunch hour unless the weather was bad.
Ginger waited there just inside white line that marked off the girl's playground and stood with her back to the school.
"Jeffery," she called softly.
Jeffery looked around to make sure that no teacher watched and went over. "What is it?" he whispered back.
"I've got something to show you. Quick! Over behind the gardening shed."
Jeffery gulped. "Can Arthur come?"
"Of course he can. Hurry! There's not much time left. Go up into the playing field and across that way so no one will suspect." Then she scooted away in a diagonal direction over to the garden shed.
The outskirts of the two sunniest sides of the playing field had been dug up to make victory gardens. All the boys took gardening lessons because of the war. Digging for Victory it was called and the garden shed held the necessary tools and clogs. It was their misfortune that Miss Peskett looked out the window after leaving the girl's lunchroom seconds before the trio split up, and by craning her head had managed to see enough to guess roughly where they intended to meet.
The grass on the playing field was wet but short, so that little of the morning's rain dampened their feet. Soon they joined Ginger behind the garden shed.
"Quick," she said as she bent over to grope in the gap beneath the shed. The two boys watched and wondered as she reached in and pulled out her floral decorated, velveteen handbag. There was a piece of wood sticking from the corner at the top by the twist clasp stopping it from closing properly. It surprised the boys that she would have put her prized possession under the shed. Few of the girls had bags, and none had one quite so ornate and fancy. Ginger might not have had one either, but her grandmother had given it to her the day before the evacuation.
"To keep your bits and pieces in," Grandmother said as she pushed the bag toward Ginger. At first she'd refused to take it, but Grandma said, "Take it, girl. Who knows where the Germans will drop their bombs? They might get it, or me, for that matter." So Ginger took the bag and cried for two reasons; one because she knew how much her grandmother loved it, and two at the thought that her grandmother might get killed.
She hadn't seen her grandmother since then, but she sometimes sent Ginger letters to let her know she hadn't been killed. Bombed out, she wrote, but not hurt.
A weak, plaintive, "Meow!" came from the bag. The two boys stiffened in surprise.
"What have you got there?" Jeffery asked.
"Look," Ginger said as she opened the clasp, put her hand into the velveteen bag and pulled out a tabby kitten. Both boys gasped.
"Where did it come from," Arthur asked.
"I don't know. It came up to me last night, crying, and I didn't know what to do. I know they won't let me keep it down at the pub. They have a dog, and they and the dog hate cats, so I put it in my bag and sneaked it into the house overnight. I brought it to school this morning and shoved it under the shed. Here! Take it for a minute." She pushed the kitten towards Jeffery.
Jeffery took it and stroked its head and scratched under its ears. It liked this treatment and wriggled around until it managed to get to its feet on Jeffery's arm whereupon it climbed up to his shoulder and rubbed against his head.
Ginger turned and picked up a small cough lozenge tin that she'd placed beside the shed. Normally she kept needles and thread in the tin, but she'd wrapped these in a handkerchief for now. "I saved a few meat scraps from the stew. I hope it will eat. I tried it with a bit of toast and jam this morning but it didn't seem to like that." She picked out a piece of meat with her fingers and held it to the kitten's mouth. The kitten licked hungrily at the meat, but seemed unable to get its mouth around it to chew.
"Wait," Jeffery said. "I'll cut it up with my penknife." There was much shuffling around. Jeffery handed the kitten to Arthur before pulling out his penknife. Then he took the piece of meat from Ginger who took the kitten from Arthur. Jeffery chopped up the meat on top of a stone. Then he gave Ginger a small bit. She held this out on the tip of her finger and the kitten began to eat.
"Arthur," said Jeffery, "Go see if you can find a tin can to get some water for it. It must be thirsty. They sometimes throw tins out from the kitchen." Arthur, though reluctant to leave show of the kitten being fed, hurried off to see what he could find.
Involved with the kitten, which now ate heartily, they failed to hear Miss Peskett come up with the tiny dog she always brought to school. Not until the dog yapped and the kitten shrank up against Ginger did they realise she stood watching them.
"What are you doing? And where did you get that animal?"
Startled, the two children were speechless.
"What are you doing with that cat?"
Ginger hesitated.
"Answer me! Now!" the teacher snapped.
Ginger hesitated for a moment longer, and then said, "I found it last night, Miss. It was lost and seemed hungry. I took it home but they wouldn't let it in the house, so I put it in my purse and brought it to school."
"The animal would have found its way home, I'm sure. Now you seem to be feeding it meat from the stew. That meat is supplied for you to eat and is not pet food. Take that thing up into the farmer's field and release it. There are always mice around on a farm, let it eat them. Go!"
The last word was snapped out again and Ginger picked up her handbag and started to make her way up the small slope that led to the sparse hedge at the edge of the farm field. Miss Peskett turned to Jeffery. "You, Jeffery Fraser, will go to Mr. Perkins office. You know the rules about secret meetings with girls during school hours." Holding her dog's leash with one hand, she pointed in the direction Jeffery was to take with the other. The dog yapped again as, head drooping, Jeffery headed in the indicated direction. As he did this, he saw Arthur dodge back behind the far corner of the school building.
When Jeffery and Miss Peskett went into the building, Arthur popped out from his hiding place and followed Ginger into the field. He'd not only found a flat tin that he'd filled with water, he'd also brought the small cardboard box that normally held his gasmask. Between the two of them, he and Ginger settled the kitten into the box with the water and managed to seal the box by placing a large stone on top of the lid so that the kitten could not lift it and escape. There was a coppice in the corner of the field where they put the box under a bush. Before they parted, they agreed that it would be best if Arthur took the kitten to the Manor House after school. There were a lot of out buildings on the manor grounds where it could be hidden.
Chapter 5
The woodworking class had started when Jeffery arrived. Mr. Bradshaw, the shop teacher, didn't much care what time his students turned up and took no notice, but continued to demonstrate and instruct shoe repair to those who were already there. Mrs. Burnett had told Jeffery she had no shoes to let him have for repair. This left him with nothing to do except carry on building an egg rack. He'd just pulled the tools out and taken the partly finished rack from the drawer allotted to him when Arthur sidled over.
"Did you get it?" asked Arthur, referring to the cane.
"Yeah! Three across the finger tips. It hurt."
Arthur spotted Mr. Bradshaw eyeing them, picked up a piece of Jeffery's unfinished egg rack, pointed to it and said, "Peskett's an old bitch. See you later." Then he put the piece down and walked back to his own work.
Later, after school was over for the day, Jeffery and Arthur hurried up to the playing field and crossed into the farmer's field. Ginger was already there in the copse holding the kitten upside down in both hands rocking it like a baby.
"That's not the way to hold a kitten," Jeffery said. They like to be held right side up."
Ginger sniffed "Doesn't seem to bother it," She said. She was right. The kitten slept peacefully. "Thing is -- well -- where are we going to keep it? They won't have it at the pub." Ginger was billeted at the Fox and Hounds Inn, a pub at the lower end of the village green opposite the church.
"No point in asking the Burnett's." Jeffery shrugged, spreading his hands. "They don't like feeding me much, let alone feeding a kitten."
"I told you I'd take it to the manor," Arthur said. "There's lots of old sheds and buildings there. Should be some place."
"They've also got a lot of dogs up there." Ginger said and pulled the kitten closer. "What about them? They'll kill a kitten."
"They're not dogs," Arthur countered," they're hounds. Foxhunting hounds."
"Foxhunting hounds. That's even worse. They'll hunt the poor thing down and kill it for certain. I hate foxhunting."
Arthur shook his head. "No they won't. The hounds are kept in kennels behind a high wire fence. They can't get out, so they won't be able to hurt it, will they?"
Ginger came up with another objection. "They'll smell it. They'll start howling and scare it to death."
"You got a better suggestion?" Arthur asked. "You can't keep it and Jeffery can't. Leave it here and the farm dog's going to make short work of it. That dog doesn't like stray cats. Only farm ones." He stared at the other two. "The kennel is on the opposite side of the house from where I'll put it. There's a big old barn there. They don't use it these days because Colonel Bartelby only keeps a couple of horses now and they're in a smaller barn near the hounds."
Neither Jeffery nor Ginger really liked Arthur's plan, each wanting to keep the kitten close by, but they couldn't think of a better one.
"Let's go, then," Ginger said as she put the kitten back into the box. "We can go down past the farm and out the farm gate. That's the quickest way."
"Not me," Arthur said with a vigorous head shake. "We might run into old Selkirk. He told me never to come back on his land again."
Jeffery started to laugh.
"It's not funny," Arthur cried out. "He got his shotgun with him all the time."
"You can't blame him being angry," Jeffery said. "You burned his haystack down, and you won't tell us why you did it. Maybe I should set fire to the Burnett's house and end up at the manor." Grinning broadly he wagged a finger at Arthur. "What do they call it? The Hostel for Problem Evacuees?"
Arthur laughed. "You know that's not the proper name. Nobody saw me put a light that haystack. I was smoking, but there was another man there. He was smoking, too. Could have been him. But I would have burnt old Selkirk's haystack if I'd known I'd get thrown off the farm and end up at the manor. Best place I've ever lived."
Ginger held the kitten's box tight to her chest. "Come on then," she said. "I've got jobs to do down at the pub. They're not a bad lot, but if I'm late they get upset. Then they stay grumpy all evening."
So the three of them marched off to the corner of the field and pushed through a gap in the hedge. Then they scooted across a cart track and through a gap in the hedge on the far side. Through that, they turned left, clambered over a stile and came out on the road leading to the school. Ginger had put the kitten back into the box and she shoved the box into Jeffery's hands.
"Take this, then. I've got to go. I really, really don't want them to be cross." Then without saying more, she rushed away towards what the locals called the bottom of The Green. Jeffery and Arthur went the other way to the top. Five minutes later they arrived at the high brick wall that surrounded the manor. A road ran up to a big, wooden double gate that closed off the driveway. Alongside the main gate there was a smaller gate which they entered. The manor, a large, two story, gabled house covered in Ivy lay straight ahead.
"This way," Arthur said as he swung right away from the road, and moved off down a narrow dirt footpath that ran close to the inside of the tall brick wall. "Nobody comes along here that I know of. We can get around the back without cutting across the garden. George, the old gardener doesn't like us near his garden. Thinks we'll steal his stuff. There's nothing there this time of year worth stealing, anyway. Not as if there'd be strawberries or stuff like that."
The footpath was partially overgrown. As they pushed through the thick growth they were brushed by rain soaked shrubbery and low tree branches. The rain soaked undergrowth wetted them and Jeffery started to worry about what Mrs. Burnett might say when he got home. As the going got rougher the kitten jumped around in the box and started to meow plaintively.
"How much further?" Jeffery wanted to know.
"Not much." Arthur cut away from the footpath and turned toward the house.
Off to the right the wall surrounding the manor had collapsed and Jeffery saw a wooded area beyond. "Why don't they have that repaired?" he asked.
"I don't think the Colonel can afford it. He's got this big house, but the servants say he's almost broke. He gets paid to have us evacuees here. That helps. They say he'll have to sell after the war. At one time he owned the woods on the other side of the wall. They got sold."
"Well what about his wife and children?"
"Lady Bartelby died a few years before the war. From new-monia. That's what Betsy said. She's the kitchen maid. We watch out for Betsy, she's not very nice and she don't like the evacuees."
"Why not?"
Arthur stopped and shrugged. "Search me."
They were walking over short grass in full view of the house. Jeffery glanced over and saw a young female face at the window. "Somebody's watching us."
"That'll be Betsy. She spies on everybody. I told you, not nice. She won't tell, though, not unless there's something in it for her. I bet right now she's wondering what we've got in the box. We've got to fool her and find a place for the kitten to sleep so we can take the box out with us."
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-29 show above.)