Time to Say Goodbye (17 page)

Josh had described their hideout as a grassy hollow, but in fact it had once been in a cornfield and now the stiff stems of the remnants of the crop surrounded them. It was difficult to see out, and to make matters worse the hollow felt extremely hot after the cool shade of the trees, with the sun beating down on their heads and the breeze unable to penetrate the surrounding stalks. Rita began to grumble first, as Imogen had known she would. She said it was a bad spot; their view of the runway was very restricted, but if it occurred to the guards to look in their direction she was sure they would be easily spotted. Woody was beginning to tell her that if she wanted to go she could do so when they heard a loudspeaker boom out and saw, in the distance, the figures of men in what Imogen guessed must be their flying kit running as hard as they could towards the planes which were lined up in readiness.

‘They’re being scrambled,’ Woody hissed in Imogen’s ear. ‘That means the enemy have been picked up crossing the Channel or the North Sea either on the radar or by the Royal Observer Corps. They telegraph the news to the airfields, who have to get into the air as soon as they can. I don’t understand everything Laurie told me but it seems that height is terribly important, and that’s where we lose most men and machines. The Luftwaffe have time on their side, time to gain height I mean, so they can bounce on the aircraft below them rather like a cat bounces on a mouse, from above, d’you see?’

‘And the Huns attack out of the sun,’ Josh put in, having to raise his voice above the roar of the engines as the planes began first to trundle and then to race across the grass. ‘You can imagine how hard it is to spot somebody hundreds of feet above you when in addition to everything else he’s coming at you out of the sun and you have to fight bedazzled. If the warning comes early enough our chaps can climb and then they can pick off the enemy, because by and large the Spits are faster and nippier than the Messerschmitts and the Junkers. And of course both Spitfires and Hurricanes are a great deal more manoeuvrable than the Stukas.’

After his conversation with Laurie, Woody, who had been keen on aircraft, according to him, ever since he could toddle, had immediately rushed home and consulted his books on flying. He had learned that the Stuka was a dive bomber which, when it descended towards a target, let out a hellish scream, no doubt adding to the terror of a normal bombing raid. Woody explained all this to his companions, and as the last plane left the ground he said cheerfully, ‘Well, that’s all the show for now. From what I remember it’s a matter of fuel almost as much as firepower. Our aircraft can stay in the air for two or three hours but then they have to get down. The Luftwaffe must have bigger fuel tanks, I suppose, because they have much further to travel.’

‘But not so far now they’ve got French, Belgian, Dutch . . . oh, all sorts of airfields on the continent, so they don’t have to come all the way from Germany,’ Josh said, and Imogen noticed that both he and Debby were very pale, and that Debby was clutching Josh’s hand convulsively; so convulsively that her knuckles were white.

‘So they won’t be back for two or three hours then?’ Imogen said presently when the roar of the engines had faded to a faint murmur. ‘No point in hanging around here to be spotted the next time the guards go past . . . only I expect they’ll be looking up, don’t you? They’ll want to make sure that any planes going over are ours.’

Woody’s head popped up so that he could look across at the airfield, for like everyone else he had gazed skywards until there was nothing in sight. Now he stretched and yawned, then grinned at his companions. ‘Well, that’s it. Shall we go back through the wood and begin to make our way homewards? No point in—’

‘Shut up a moment,’ Rita said in a peremptory fashion. ‘They’re coming back; they must have been recalled. Laurie said they were in radio contact with base, so presumably it was a false alarm.’

Woody cupped one hand behind his ear. ‘Yes, I can hear the engines . . .’ he began, then frowned. ‘Hang on a minute. I’ve got to know the sound of our engines and I don’t think . . .’

Now they were all on their feet and staring up into the blue sky even as Woody shrieked at them to get down. ‘They aren’t ours,’ he shouted. ‘Where’s the bloody ack-ack?’ He stopped speaking and dived for the ground, pulling Imogen with him. The roar of the engines was right overhead and it seemed to Imogen that all hell had broken loose. The planes came in fast and low, out of the sun, as Josh had predicted, raining down bullets as they came, attacking everything indiscriminately. Imogen, peering between the cornstalks, saw one of the guards bowled over as though he weighed no more than a husk of wheat, saw the other run to him, and then heard the hellish scream which Woody had just been describing. She looked up. A huge plane, which seemed to be two or three times the size of the Spitfire and Hurricane attacking it, was almost upon them. She saw the bomb doors open, saw the monstrous fish hurtle downwards and put both hands over her ears as it hit the ground and exploded, throwing up great sprays of soil and choking smoke before the pilot pulled out of his dive and headed back the way he had come. Imogen watched as the Stuka gathered its defensive fighters around it like a man pulling on a cloak, and then the whole lot climbed into the blue and disappeared. The guards did not appear to have seen the children; the one on the ground was clutching his shoulder, and his companion was bending over him, assisting him to rise. Relieved, Imogen watched as the pair disappeared in the direction of the huts.

She looked around at her four friends and wondered for a moment how they had managed to get so dirty, then realised that the bomb which had exploded so near their hideout had thrown earth and grass some considerable distance. She examined their expressions: Woody looked excited, almost as though what they had watched had been on the cinema screen, whilst Josh, though pale, was bright-eyed; now that the action was over she saw he was both frightened and furious and was swearing beneath his breath, had probably been doing so from the moment the planes attacked. That was not like Josh, who never swore. Debby was wiping dirt from her face and Imogen saw that she was crying; there were two white tear tracks running down her filthy cheeks. Rita was flushed and excited, hopping up and down and saying that she hoped Laurie would meet them on his way home, and blast the whole lot of them out of the sky.

It took a good five minutes before Imogen herself had stopped shaking and realised that it was the same with the others. In fact it was not until she said sharply ‘Where’s Rufus?’ that they all came back down to earth.

Chapter Six

EVERYONE STOPPED WHAT
they were doing and stared about them. There was no sign of their faithful friend, not so much as a tuft of fur, and certainly no indication that he had been hurt, but belatedly Imogen remembered that when it was clear no more sandwiches were forthcoming he had become bored with their uncomfortable hideout and wandered off. She had a distinct and horrible impression of having seen him sniffing along the perimeter fence and she could still see the little puffs of dust where the fighter plane had strafed the perimeter track. They had been standing in an untidy little group but now Woody said briskly: ‘Well, the raid’s over. They won’t come back; there’d be no point. And it does rather prove that Flotsham is well camouflaged because the huts are still standing. Now let’s concentrate on finding Rufus.’

They did not have to look far. Close against the perimeter fence, about ten yards from their hollow, they saw a pathetic heap of black fur. Imogen was the first to reach him; she flung herself down on her knees and clasped the dog round his neck. ‘And he never even had the Spam sandwich I saved for him, and they’re his favourite,’ she mourned. ‘Oh, darling Rufus, you should have stayed with us.’ She rummaged in her satchel and produced the Spam sandwich she had been saving for later, waving it under the dog’s black nose, and letting her teardrops fall on to his much loved face.

Debby and Rita joined her whilst the boys stood a respectful distance away, letting the girls get over the worst of their grief. Rita was the first to recover. She rubbed her eyes briskly and stood up. ‘We ought to bury him here, because if we take him home Auntie will know that we must have been at the airfield during the raid and it’ll spoil everything.’

Woody sighed, then absently leaned over and stroked Rufus’s silky ears. ‘Poor old beggar, you have landed us in the soup,’ he murmured. He turned to Imogen. ‘Have you realised how much weight he’s lost since coming everywhere with you girls? He used to be quite tubby but now he’s very slim, which is a good job, because carrying him back to the Linnet is going to be pretty tough work.’ He cast a reproachful look at Rita. ‘Just how do you imagine we can dig a grave for a large dog like Rufus without so much as a spade between us, Rita? We’ll have to say he ran off and must have overstrained his heart or something, because so far as I can see there’s no blood anywhere.’

‘I suppose it’s blast,’ Josh said as the two boys lifted Rufus, not without difficulty, and began to make for the path through the trees by which they had come. ‘I’ve heard stories about blast . . . gosh, he’s pretty heavy. The girls are going to have to take a turn at carrying him.’ They had not gone more than half a dozen yards, however, when he stopped short. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he exclaimed. ‘Who did that?’ He was carrying Rufus’s front end and even as he spoke Imogen, who was walking along beside him, squeaked and gasped.

‘He licked your ear; I saw his tongue come out!’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s dead at all, I think he was just knocked out when the bomb fell.’ She flung her arms round the dog, rubbing her face against his as Rufus began to struggle. ‘Oh, thank God! I do love Rufus so much, and if he had been killed it would have been our fault because we didn’t make him stay in the hollow with us.’ She dug in her bag and produced the rather battered sandwich once more, waving it enticingly in front of Rufus’s dazed eyes. ‘How about a mouthful, sweetheart?’ she said in her most wheedling tones. ‘It’s your favourite, it’s Spam.’ The dog sniffed at the food, then accepted it, and as he gulped it down she turned and gave Rita a hug. ‘Oh, Rita, I bet you’re as glad as I am – and the others too, of course.’ She looked towards Debby, who was grinning from ear to ear and rubbing her eyes with both grimy fists.

‘Put him down and see if he’s all right to walk,’ she said huskily. The boys gently lowered the dog to the ground, whereupon Rufus’s knees buckled and he looked appealingly up at his one-time carriers. Woody, who had had the lighter end, giggled. ‘The lazy old beggar obviously enjoyed having a lift,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But the sooner he learns to walk properly the better.’

The return of Rufus from the dead was so dramatic, so welcome, that their recent terror over the raid became almost insignificant. At first the dog walked along dreamily, as though only half awake, but after ten or fifteen minutes it was as though his brain had cleared and he began to examine every tree, lifting his leg against favoured ones and behaving, in short, in a perfectly normal manner. Woody dug in his pocket and produced a boiled sweet which he had been saving for the journey home, and the speed at which Rufus both accepted it and gulped it down made them all laugh.

‘Well, whatever was the matter, he’s over it now,’ Josh remarked. ‘Good old indestructible Rufus, you’ve saved our bacon. If you really had snuffed it there’d have been all sorts of fuss, but as it is we can tell Mrs Pilgrim and Auntie that we heard the planes and saw the Stuka diving without them getting wound up. And that means our expedition to the Broad is still on even though we missed out today.’

They were tramping along, happily discussing the raid and boasting about how clever they had been to get so close without actually risking life and limb, when Debby suddenly jerked at Imogen’s arm. ‘Immy, the accumulator!’ she said. ‘You know how keen Auntie was for us to fetch it before Mr Tidnam closes. Well, I reckon even if we run all the way he’ll have shut up shop by the time we get to the village. Oh dear, we’ll be in awful trouble.’

Josh gave her a reassuring smile. ‘No you won’t. Old Tidnam lives in the cottage next door to the garage. All you have to do is knock and he’ll be happy to oblige.’

‘You can do the knocking then,’ Imogen said. ‘I don’t mind Mr Tidnam – well, I like him – but his wife’s a different kettle of fish. She doesn’t like kids and she gets ever so cross if you go round after hours, as she calls it. If I knock and she answers she’ll give me a right earful and tell me to come back at half past eight tomorrow morning. It’s all very well for you to laugh – I think she quite likes boys – but this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve put her out by arriving just when she’s serving Mr Tidnam’s tea. Oh, be a sport, Josh!’

They were emerging on to the village street and Josh was beginning to say that he didn’t mind bearding the Tidnams in their den when Debby grabbed his arm. ‘You won’t have to; here comes Jill!’ she said excitedly. ‘She’s pushing her bike and look, she’s got the accumulator dangling from one handlebar and a shopping basket from the other. Oh, what day of the week is it?’ She beamed round at her companions. ‘Is it the day the fish and chip van comes? I’m sure I can smell the fat hotting up.’

Everyone’s pace immediately quickened. Mr and Mrs Ryder owned and ran a mobile fish and chip van, visiting those villages which had no such shop of their own. It came round once a week, and Mr Ryder dispensed his delicious product to anyone who could afford a threepenny bag of chips or a ninepenny piece of fish. His van stood on the village green for a full hour whilst customers queued and, as Woody was apt to say, got the delicious smell for free.

Of course, had he and Josh lived with the rest of the school at Hemblington Hall, he would never have got so much as a whiff of the Ryders’ offerings, for the teachers thought the boys at their school were sufficiently well fed without adding anything else. ‘They think fish and chips are common,’ Woody had told the girls. He had scowled. ‘But the masters nip down and get a paper of chips at the van, and a pint of beer or Guinness or something, whenever they think no one’s watching.’