Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (33 page)

‘Do you want me to try to do anything about that serve of yours?' she asked without much hope, having seen him throw the ball up and miss on practically every occasion.

‘Depends whether you can spare me the next year of your life, teach!' Eugene called back cheerfully. ‘Perhaps you'd better leave me alone to work on it! Even so – just for devilment – let's have a wee game, shall we? Just to see how good your coaching is?'

Kate shrugged and knocked half a dozen balls down to him.

‘You start,' she said from the net, collecting another set of balls with her feet and lobbing them over to him. ‘Suppose I give you two points game start? Fair?'

‘Suppose you do,' he wondered. ‘Isn't that rather a lot to catch up?'

‘Let that be my worry!'

Kate bounced the last remaining ball once with her racket, then crashed it down past him with a classic forehand passing shot.

‘Love all – thirty love to you – first service!' she chirped.

Eugene frowned at her as if trying to focus on both her and the lines, then, changing his racket from his right hand to his left, prepared to serve.

‘What are you doing?' Kate wondered, advancing off the base line towards the net. ‘You're not going to play
left-handed
?'

‘I am!' Eugene called back. ‘Haven't you seen how useless I am with me right?'

Kate didn't even see his first service, or indeed his second. She saw very little of the ball at all in fact as Eugene romped to a 6–2, 6–1 victory.

She said nothing at all during the game, realising after the first two aces that she had been well and truly taken, concentrating instead on keeping her end up, but she was never in the game with a chance. Eugene was all over her. He had every shot in the book and a few more on top. He was agile, extremely fast and above all highly skilled, far and away the best tennis player she had ever played against. Finally, at the end of the concluding set, she sat on her chair with a towel to her face trying to get her breath back as Eugene, as
cool as he was when he began, lit a cigarette and strolled about the court singing a ballad in what she could only suppose was Gaelic.

‘I take it you thought that was funny,' she said from behind her towel. ‘Though personally, I can't exactly see the joke.'

‘It's a private thing,' Eugene said. ‘And I have to say I'm enjoying it.'

‘Why couldn't you just have come clean and said you can play?'

‘That I can what? That I can
play
? I'll have you know, missie, you are looking at the ex-Junior Champion of All Ireland.'

‘I thought you just played that game with a stick and ball.'

‘And ran around saying
begob
and
begorrah
.' Eugene laughed. ‘That's half the fun of it really. Playing it close to your chest. Not showing your hand.'

‘Making a fool of someone.'

‘Oh, come on!' Eugene looked genuinely hurt. ‘I wouldn't ever make a fool of you, Kate. You're a damned good player. Sorry – I mean a
dashed
good player. I mean it – you're the best girl I've ever played, and I've played a few.'

‘I'm sure.' Kate finished towelling herself dry, and pulled on her sweater.

‘Ah, come
on!
No hard feelings!'

No hard feelings?'
Kate echoed. ‘On the contrary, tons of hard feelings! And with knobs on!'

‘With
knobs on
bedad!' He laughed as she walked off feeling thoroughly humiliated. ‘With knobs on no less!'

‘Oh,
go away
!' Kate muttered through clenched
teeth, banging her racket against her legs. ‘Go away and stay away. Why did you have to go and
spoil
everything?'

Behind her, abandoned on the tennis court, Eugene let the expression on his face change entirely as he watched the elegant blonde figure of Kate stride away from him, wishing from the bottom of his heart that it hadn't been necessary to make an enemy of Kate Maddox.

‘But it was, Eugene old fellow,' he muttered to himself as he ambled back towards his quarters. ‘It was, it was, it was – and you damn' well know it. Alas.'

The church bells woke them all. Had they just been the bells in the village church the Nosy Parkers would have taken a lot longer to be roused, but since there was a private chapel in the grounds with its own set of bells the sound woke everyone almost immediately.

Everyone knew what it meant: invasion! The use of church bells had been banned for months, so that in the event of an invasion their ringing would be the ultimate signal that the Germans had landed. Everyone pulled on the clothes that had been left folded on the bottom of their beds for precisely this moment. There was no yawning, no grumbling, as would be normal when roused from sleep. Everyone simply dressed as quickly as they could before heading for their assembly points.

In the great hall both men and women fell in under their section numbers, which were displayed on large cardboard squares pinned to various parts of the walls. Those pre-appointed
to collect all files did so before joining the guardian platoon of soldiers assembled outside the front doors armed and ready, the safety catches for once already off their rifles.

‘Silence!' Major Folkestone barked as he marshalled his troops. ‘You know the orders! Complete and utter silence at all times!'

Kate couldn't help raising her eyes to heaven at the incongruity of their CO's commanding silence, since no one in the hall had actually uttered a sound, most of them being far too frightened to do more than stare around them, wondering if they were about to see Nazi uniforms coming through the doors. Major Folkestone and his three NCOs led their allocated sections out of the great hall and along the completely darkened passageways, the whole house observing a total blackout.

Lines of string had been fixed along the walls of the corridors to facilitate any evacuation that might take place at night, the last in line being deputed to undo the guidelines from their fixings and collect all the string up rather than leave it in place for the enemy, although why any invading army might need to be guided around a mansion by lines of string Kate was unable to imagine. None the less, orders were orders, and it being wartime no more was said. So as the lines of refugees tiptoed as silently as possible, given their heavy walking shoes and army boots, down the labyrinth of corridors and out of the house, those bringing up the rear hurriedly undid and rewound hundreds of feet of twine.

Once outside the house, everyone found themselves being ordered by signal only to proceed in
various directions across the parkland. Marjorie, Kate and Billy's group headed for the dense woodland to the north side of the lake. At least half a dozen in each group had been issued with a home-made weapon before leaving the house. Marjorie found herself armed with a pike made out of a long broom handle with a sharpened blade fashioned from a cutter taken off a piece of old farm machinery, and Kate had a knobkerrie made similarly of a broomstick with a large brass bed-knob at the business end. Billy now carried their trusty bread knife on loan from the cottage kitchen, and having spent some happy mornings knifing some of last season's marrows he felt that he would make a good job of despatching any Nazi that crossed his path.

Lily, meanwhile, had been armed with a stone-filled ballcock attached to a length of chain. She now stopped and started to laugh.

‘Just look at us! Really. We look like something from some medieval army. Gracious heavens, Jerry is going to run when he sees us, isn't he? Bed-knobs, bread knives and broom handles. They're going to take to the hills when they see us, aren't they?'

‘That's enough of that, Lily Ormerod,' Kate muttered. ‘You're beginning to sound like the Duke of Wellington surveying his troops before the Battle of Waterloo.'

They all turned and stared at her for a second.

‘He said,
I don
'
t know what they
'
ll do to Napoleon, but they certainly scare me
. Or something like it anyway.'

‘Humph. The Iron Duke on his dark grey horse—'

‘I like men on grey horses,' Kate announced apropos of nothing in particular as she carefully avoided an overhanging branch.

Section H was signalled to a halt deep in the middle of the thick woodland.

‘Dash it,' Lily moaned, as she examined her legs. ‘There goes my last pair of stockings.'

‘Hush!' Major Folkestone told her, having walked down the ranks to where they were standing. ‘Hush. Or I'll have you up on a charge, Miss Ormerod. No one wants to know about your stockings at this moment in our island's history.'

‘Don't you believe it,' Lily muttered once he had returned to the top of the waiting personnel.

The major, together with one of the soldiers, started to remove brushwood and several sods of thick turf from the ground in front of them, revealing a heavy trapdoor which one of the soldiers unlocked before standing aside.

Major Folkestone pointed with his swagger stick for the women to enter the pitch-dark hidey-hole.

‘What is
this
?' Lily whispered to Kate. ‘Not the wine cellars –
that
would be too good to be true, of course.'

‘I won't tell you again!' the major warned. ‘Whoever you are!'

Lily pulled a face and then put a hand to her mouth because her teeth were now chattering with the cold. Nevertheless, following hard on the major's heels, she led the way down a long flight of slippery steps, guided well below ground level by a rusty iron handrail. Finally, at the end of the descending passageway, Major Folkestone took a
key from his pocket and unlocked a heavy wooden door.

Once everyone was inside, Major Folkestone struck a match and lit a succession of candles that were already in place around the cavern. As the flickering light illuminated their surroundings everyone could see that the place in which they stood had been quite obviously prepared for just such an emergency as that in which they now found themselves.

An already existing cave, the first of a succession of such places that stretched ahead and down into what seemed like the bowels of the earth, had been fashioned into a primitive security bunker. The various indentations in the natural rock formations had been fashioned into different rooms, including work and sleeping quarters as well as basic washing and sanitary facilities.

Large pipes could be seen leading upwards through holes drilled in the roof to extract the stale air and feed in the fresh, the whole bunker being furnished for every basic need including hammocks for sleeping and ranges of cabinets for the all-important filing of Top Secret documents. There was also a large supply of arms and ammunition at the entrance, the sight of which made Marjorie realise that in the event of their being found by the enemy, there would not only be no getting in, there would be no getting out.

‘Blimey,' Billy whispered. ‘I never seen the like.'

‘Yes, well, you wouldn't, lad,' Major Folkestone replied, having now lit at least two dozen candles, most of which had been placed in niches in the walls. ‘It's a pity you have to see it at all. But there
you are. At least this will keep us all out of the limelight till everyone's been able to regroup.'

‘What does he mean by regroup?' Lily whispered to Kate. ‘We will surely have to do a lot more than regroup to survive down here for any length of time.'

‘It wouldn't take a lot of finding either,' Marjorie whispered back. ‘I'm surprised it hasn't got a number on it. Number 12, Dingly Dell.'

Kate and Lily giggled nervously, at which the major turned and pointed his swagger stick at them.

‘I fail to understand how anyone can possibly find anything to giggle at in this sort of situation,' he snapped. ‘Get a grip on yourselves, both of you. We are about to be invaded. This is no time for laughter.'

‘They was only saying that this place would be easy to find, sir,' Billy piped up, anxious as always to be helpful. ‘And you can't 'elp agreeing. I mean that trap door's pretty obvious for a start,' he added with his usual precocity.

‘The trapdoor and all signs of the entrance at this very moment are being concealed by the LDV, for your information, lad – and yours too, ladies! By the time they've finished, no one will be able to tell there's anything down here, let alone anyone, I assure you. All this has been carefully worked out to the final T. I will have you know that this place is just one of many that have been got ready in case this black day ever dawned – natural caves and subterranean caverns all over England. Very useful at these times.'

‘But won't Jerry look underground first off, sir?'
Billy persisted. ‘I mean if I was the enemy coming in and I couldn't find nobody, first place I'd have a dekko would be—'

‘Thank you, Billy – that's quite enough from you.' The major stopped him. ‘And luckily I doubt very much if Jerry is as bright as you, young man. Now once we've got you all settled in and organised, we're going to have to douse a few lights. We've got a fair supply of candles, but since they're going to be one of our most precious commodities if we're going to have to spend any length of time down here, as soon as we're comfortable we will snuff them.'

Ordered to fall out, the members of Section H carefully inspected their new lodgings before regrouping to sit smoking and talking in worried and anxious clusters around the now dimly lit bunker – all that is except Lily, who sat a little apart from the rest smoking a leisurely cigarette and reading a very old, pre-war copy of a filmgoers' magazine.

‘I know we've all talked about this sort of thing happening—'

‘It's hardly a sort of thing, Kate,' Marjorie interrupted. ‘It
is
happening, so it's an actual event. It isn't a
sort
of thing at all.'