Somewhere Over England (29 page)

‘Stay here, Mary,’ he said, heaving his collar up round his neck but she wouldn’t. She trailed along after him and he was glad really because he liked her round face, her smile, her voice. His arms ached and he loosened his shoulders as Ed had told him to do. They were on the track now and it was muddy but he hadn’t worn boots because he wanted to be able to move fast. He stepped from the mud of the track to the grass which was firmer but water splashed up the back of his legs and he wished he was old enough to wear long trousers. He stopped and pulled up his socks. Mary stopped too.

‘It’s so damp, ain’t it?’ she said, pulling her coat round her.

In the copse it was quiet and they didn’t talk but edged along the path through the tangled undergrowth. Water dripped from the branches and leaves fell slowly, damply to the ground. The leaves were catching in his shoes and he ducked down, pulling out an oak leaf which had caught beneath his arch. His fingers were trembling and his arms still ached. He was angry with himself and with his fear. He stood up suddenly, hurrying now.

Mary followed and he whispered, ‘Stay here. For heaven’s sake. Stay here. It’s my fight.’

‘Oh no it ain’t. He’s a little snot and he deserves a bloody good hiding.’ She grinned and came along beside him now.

The clearing was just beyond the holly tree and they moved slowly forward but there was no one there. Chris stood, his fists clenched, ready but unsure now. He looked at Mary and then all around.

‘They’re late,’ Mary said. ‘They got lost in the mist or had another slice of toast for breakfast, greedy pigs.’ She walked
over to the sawn logs which were piled near the edge of the clearing; brushed at some sawdust and some damp leaves and then sat, her chin in her hands.

Chris stood motionless. His head was still aching. He flexed his arms, then took off his coat, throwing it towards Mary. It didn’t reach her and he started to walk across but then they came, bursting from the woods, swinging glowing cans round and round their heads, holding on to the wire and Chris knew that inside the cans were sticks doused in paraffin because he had seen them do it before, but never near another boy. Round and round they whirred, burning brighter and brighter as the air entered the holes which Joe and the gang had pierced in the sides. They were surrounding him now and one boy rushed forward and Chris had to dodge the can, leaping back, fear high in his throat.

Mary was calling out, trying to get through but Len dropped out of the circle and grabbed her, his can hanging limp as he coiled the wire up round his hand.

Chris turned this way, that way, seeing the brightness of the cans, one coming close, and then another. One nearly hit him and he scrambled back but lost his footing and fell. There was laughter now. Loud mouths and the burning cans were all around and over his head and it was like the torches in Germany that he had watched with his father.

‘Daddy,’ he whispered and then he heard Joe call.

‘Don’t think we don’t know you took lessons from your Yank. We saw you, didn’t we? Been on your boat yet? No, because we’ve sunk it, haven’t we? Sunk it proper this time. You didn’t know, did you?’

Chris pushed himself up, crouching because the cans were still above him, still too close. If they hit him, the lid would fly open and the wood would burst out and he would burn.

He was dribbling, he knew he was dribbling because it was running down his chin but he wasn’t crying. They wouldn’t make him cry but he could hear Mary. She was. She was crying and shouting and he tried to crawl beneath the whirling cans to her but then the boys were spreading out and he was up again. He could smell the paraffin in the air, see the trail of black smoke and then there gripping two of the boys was Ed, his face set and calm, his eyes hard and angry.

Chris spun round. There were two other Americans holding
a boy each, gripping them by the collars so that their feet almost left the ground. They were chewing gum and smiled at Chris but their eyes were angry too. The cans lay on the ground, the leaves steaming from their heat. They would not burn now that the wind was not tearing through them. The boy who was holding Mary ran off into the darkness of the wood.

Joe was the only one left and he stood uncertainly between Ed and Chris.

Chris wiped his chin.

‘You OK, Chris Weber?’ Ed asked.

Chris nodded, waving Mary away.

‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll fight you, Joe. I’ll beat you and then you leave me alone.’

They fought then but Joe used his head to butt and his teeth to bite. Chris did not. He punched and then he flicked Joe’s feet from under him but Joe caught at his ankles and brought him down too, punching his ribs, his legs, biting his arm, butting his face. There was blood in his mouth but he could see Ed standing there, holding the two boys, watching closely, never speaking. Just watching.

Mary spoke though. He could hear her shouts, her groans, her cries.

‘Kill ’im.’

‘Oh Chris.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Stop it, Ed. Stop it.’

But Ed didn’t stop it. He watched as Chris fought, blood staining his cheek and he wanted to grab Joe and slap him because he was a bully and he was hurting the kid, like he’d been hurt when he’d broken his first horse in. His father hadn’t stopped that and afterwards Ed had been glad.

He watched as Chris tried the uppercut but from the ground. He made contact, and again, and then he was on top, his knees resting on Joe’s shoulders. Keeping his body on the ground, twisting his hair until the boy cried and told him to stop.

Ed let the others go then and didn’t watch as they ran through the woods. He nodded to Earl and Mario who loosened their grip on the other boys, letting them push away, and follow the others.

He walked to Chris, helping him up, letting Mary come and grip Chris’s arm, lead him to the logs. Then Ed dragged the
other boy up, checked him over and led him from the clearing, right through to the edge of the copse. He told him that if there was any more trouble of any sort it wouldn’t be Chris who dealt with it next time. It would be somebody much bigger. Did he get the picture? He watched as Joe ran back down the track to the village. He’d not be back.

Chris was sitting on the logs. His head hung down. It was still aching, banging and banging inside his skull. His hands felt swollen and his mouth was sore but he looked up when Ed came and stood in front of him.

‘You did real good, Chris. Your pop would have been proud of you. And your mom too.’ He held out his hand and Chris shook it, standing, feeling his legs trembling but he smiled. He felt so good inside.

‘It doesn’t matter if he tells the village,’ Chris said, though it hurt to talk and spit had filled his mouth. He swallowed it.

‘He won’t. Don’t you worry about that. You tell them when you’re ready.’ Ed was passing his cigarettes to Earl and Mario, then lit one himself. ‘I guess it was lucky we were passing but I figure you could have dealt with it anyway.’

He smiled at Chris and they both knew the truth.

‘You’d better get along home now. Get that face cleaned up, spend that money. Give Laura a heart attack.’ Ed laughed. ‘You can make it can you?’

‘Sure the kid can make it, Captain,’ Earl said, helping Chris to his feet. ‘Someone who’s as tough as this can manage just about anything.’ He bent down and picked up Chris’s coat, letting Ed help him on with it.

‘By the way, this is Earl whose family came from Hamburg, and this other guy is from some strange hot place where they eat a lot of pasta.’ Ed winked at Chris.

Chris pulled his coat around him, but he was hot, really hot. He looked at the men.

‘Thanks,’ said Chris. ‘You know, thanks.’ His voice was fractured now and small.

‘I know,’ said Ed, punching him lightly on the arm. ‘Be seeing you then.’

He turned and walked back with the other two men and this time Chris remembered to call.

‘Good luck.’

The next day Laura called the doctor who said that the headache was not schoolboy tension or the result of a scrap but rheumatic fever and an ambulance came. But Chris knew nothing of that, he just knew pain and illness.

He lay in the hospital bed, his legs aching too much to keep still even though the woman in the white apron told him he must not move so the nurses came and put iron bars across his calves and his forearms and the pressure of their weight hurt him even more. He cried and Laura held his hand but her hand was too heavy on his flesh. He was so hot and the screens around the bed were too bright. He wanted it dark, no light, nothing to blind his eyes.

The nurse came again, forcing his lips apart but they were cut. Couldn’t she see they were cut and the medicine was bitter and scoured his throat. He was so hot.

‘Mum. Daddy.’

He was so hot. The screens were still there. They were like Laura’s knickers on the washing line, all gathered, but they weren’t blowing. They were just white, glaring white. His legs hurt. Why wouldn’t they take these bars away, these screens?

‘Mum. Daddy.’

He was crying. He knew he was crying because he was shaking but it hurt his head. Where was his mummy? She’d been away for so long. Where was she?

Helen came on the first train. She took the bus to the hospital and ran in. The nurse at the desk called the doctor who took her into the side office, calling for a cup of tea for Mrs Weber.

‘He has rheumatic fever and is holding his own, Mrs Weber. He has been delirious for two days and we have attached him to a heart monitor. Unfortunately we have had to restrain his limbs to prevent any unnecessary strain on the heart. This of course is the danger with rheumatic fever. It can affect the heart you see.’

He turned as the door opened and the nurse came in with a cup of tea. He was a small man, with lines of tiredness running from his nose to his mouth but then, Helen thought, the nurse had them just as deep.

And yes, she did know that rheumatic fever affected the heart but it must not affect Chris’s. She loved him too much. She mustn’t lose him, not after sending him away. Not after
leaving him here without her. No, she mustn’t lose him; she had lost too much of his life already.

She said, ‘Yes, I see. What can be done?’ But she couldn’t drink her tea because she was gripping the cup and the saucer too tightly.

‘The remedy is rest and aspirins in fluid, twice daily. A tablespoon at a time.’ He smiled. ‘Try not to worry, Mrs Weber. It is usually most effective.’ He took her then to see Chris. He lay behind screens and seemed so alone in the large room, but then she saw Laura and Helen was glad that she was there.

Helen smiled as the doctor moved back the screen, lifting it so that there was no noise. She touched Laura on the shoulder, then sat in the chair that the doctor indicated.

Chris was so small, so fevered. His face was red and beaded with sweat and the iron bars were there, pinioning his limbs.

‘He’s doing very well,’ the sister murmured, taking the place of the doctor.

Helen touched her son’s hand, slipping hers beneath his, folding her fingers over lightly.

He opened his eyes. ‘Mum,’ he said and smiled. ‘Where’s Daddy?’

He drifted in and out of delirium for one week and Mary looked in through the window, anxious, unsmiling. Laura stayed some of the time but Helen stayed every day and every night wondering if the flight of planes each morning and evening disturbed him. At the end of the week his fever broke but his limbs still hurt and one moment he was sweating and the next he was cold but now Mary could come in too.

She sat with Helen and talked to him of the boat which Ed had fished for and found. Chris smiled.

Helen left for two hours when Laura came. She walked into the town where the hospital was situated and bought blackout material which was not rationed. She sat and sewed each day and night, sitting at his bedside telling him of the crypt, of the vicar, of Marian. Telling him that it looked as though there would be victory in the Western Desert. Unable to talk of his village and his life but determined that soon she would be able to.

She brought her old lace blouse into the room and cut and hemmed a collar from it and cuffs for the dress which was to be
for Mary and listened while Laura talked of the hens and the pigs and Mr Reynolds who had to gather in the cow dung now.

On the tenth day Helen was helping the sister to ease another pillow behind her son and watching as they removed the iron bars because there was no more delirium, no more asking for his father. She lifted the cup with a spout like a teapot to his lips, not allowing him to move at all because the doctor was still concerned about any strain to his heart.

‘There is a murmur, you see, Mrs Weber,’ he said as he watched her wiping Chris’s mouth. ‘A weakness. It is imperative that he rests.’

His words were over-hung with the roar from the aeroplanes as they returned from a flight. Helen looked not at the doctor but out of the window.

‘Yes, I see,’ she said. ‘I will make sure he rests.’ She looked at the temperature chart hooked on the bottom of the bed; the thin red line was more even now. She smiled at her son but he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the door which had opened.

‘Hi, Ed,’ he said and there was such pleasure in his eyes.

Helen turned and saw the man, so big in his uniform, his hat slipped back on his head, his grin wide.

‘Hi, Chris Weber. So, got yourself a bit of trouble, hey?’ He walked over, his shoes silent on the waxed floor, his left hand in his pocket.

He walked to the bed, tossing some candies on the blanket. ‘You’d better get out of here soon, that boat’s going to get pretty rusty out there and the pitching’s going to go downhill.’

Helen walked to the door with the doctor then turned and watched this big man talking to her son, his hands strong and kind. He picked at some fluff on Chris’s sleeve, rolling it into a ball and flicking it into the dish on the beside table and Chris smiled.

‘Well, that’s the kind of aim you get when you’ve pitched as much as I have.’ Only then did he turn to Helen, only when Chris was tired and his lids were drooping and for that she already liked him.

He rose and walked with that ambling stride to the end of the bed where she was now standing.