on but the old man caught her arm.
‘I told ‘ee, not all in a heap. Put ‘em on one be one, look,
like this here.’ He took a letter and crumpled it in his fist,
throwing it into the heart of the fire where it caught and
quickly burned away. ‘See? That’s the way you wants to do
it.’
‘All right.’ Judy began to follow his example, screwing up
each letter separately and throwing them into the flames.
Well, that should keep the country’s secrets safe, she thought, dusting her hands off and watching the last paper shrivel to nothing. I wonder what vital task I’ll be asked to
do next.
She stood for a moment watching the fire revert to its
normal fare of twigs and dried grass clippings. To her
surprise, she was feeling better than she had for some time.
It’s being out in the country again, she thought. The war’s
still on and we’re all still as anxious about it, but it isn’t the only thing there is. In the towns and cities, where you live in fear of bombing all the time, where you can’t put your head
out of doors without seeing the damage, it seems to be the
only thing that matters. But out here, where you can see
trees coming into leaf and vegetables growing and where an
old man can spend his afternoon with a bonfire — out here,
you remember what life is all about. And it isn’t about war
at all, not really. It’s about peace.
Mr Honey was leaning on a gnarled stick, watching the
flames. He feels it too, she thought. He’s seen war himself
he must have been through the Great War - and he knows
that it’s peace which is important. He knows the truth.
He turned suddenly and looked into her eyes. For
moment, as their eyes met, they were in perfect accord.
Then Judy smiled at him and turned, going back to the
house to see what she might do next to help, in however
small a way, so that England might once again be at peace.
Chapter Twenty-Nine As the summer continued, Jean and Judy became closer than
ever. Always friends, they were now more like sisters. And
so we would have been, Judy thought, if Terry had lived.
She was now working on several different tasks for the
local WVS. As well as the pie scheme, which seemed to have
settled down since she had sorted out the paperwork, she
had gone back to making scrim and going out on the
sphagnum moss parties. Jean came too, although her figure
was now making it difficult for her to bend easily, and they
took bottles of lemonade and a few sandwiches and made a
picnic of it.
‘I never thought I’d like it in the country,’ Jean said,
sitting on a fallen tree and unwrapping the sandwiches. ‘I
always thought it was just trees and fields, with nothing to
do.’ She lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure
that nobody was listening. ‘And I thought country people
were all a bit stupid. But they’re not. They’re nice.’
Judy’s lip-reading skills had increased, particularly with
people she knew well, and she understood most of what Jean
was saying. ‘They’re just different,’ she agreed. ‘They’ve got
more time, that’s why they seem slow. But they’re not
stupid. They just know different things.’
Jean nodded. ‘The children like it here, too — most of
them. They’ve settled in really well.’
There were a number of evacuees in Ashdown. Judy’s
cousin Sylvie and many of her schoolmates were scattered
around the village and attended classes in the local school,
sharing it turn and turn about with the local children. There
had been some difficulties with this arrangement to begin with - the local children resented the newcomers coming
into their classrooms and using their desks - but when they
realised that the new timetables meant they only had to
attend for half the day, they soon saw the advantages. Over
the months, the two factions had become warily friendly,
although the evacuees still tended to band together. It was
only natural, Mrs Sutton observed, for kiddies to stick with
their own.
The children from the April Grove area, being from a
different school, were at Bridge End. Judy went over to see
Stella and Muriel Simmons so that she could report back to
Polly and Mrs Budd. Tim and Keith Budd were there as
well, and the four children were busy picking strawberries in
the vicarage garden when Judy arrived. They looked happy
and occupied, and Judy was able to write a cheerful report
to her aunt. She saw some of the other children from the
April Grove area too - Brian Collins, living on a farm,
Sammy Hodges who was staying with a young widow, and a
cluster of others. They were wary of Judy at first, finding
her deafness difficult to cope with, but once Tim had told
them she had been in a bombing raid they looked at her with
more respect.
‘Wish I could’ve been in Pompey in the raids,’ one boy
said enviously. ”S not fair, being sent out here where there’s nothing happening. I could help, I could. I could watch out
for Jerries and put out incendiaries.’
Judy also went to visit some refugee families who were
staying in the village. The invasion of the Low Countries a
year before had brought thousands over to England, and
they too had to be billeted. There were a number in a large
country house nearby, and Judy spent one or two afternoons
a week there, helping in the kitchens. It was just another job she could do without having to talk to people.
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to hear again, she thought
wistfully. Here in the country, people seemed to have more
time to listen to her and try to communicate their own thoughts. Yet she was still miserably aware of how isolated
she was, especially in a crowd. Apart from her work, she
spent almost all her time alone, or with Jean or Sylvie.
Much of this time, she spent thinking of Sean. He
seemed very far away now, as if he were slowly receding into
the distance. She tried to recapture the sound of his voice or
the look of his face, but her memory was patchy and the
harder she concentrated the more difficult it became to
picture him. We didn’t know each other long enough, she
thought sadly. There aren’t enough memories. Oh Sean …
Another face came more readily to her mind - a fair, open
face with glinting blue eyes and a laughing mouth. Irritated,
she tried to push it away, but the memory of the two hours
she had spent in the lift with Chris Barrett were sharper
than any of those she had tried to recapture of Sean. She
could recall every word of their conversation, hear every
laugh as he tried to cheer her up and feel again the comfort
he had given her as he slipped his arm around her to drive
away her fears. And she could remember the kiss. The only
kiss they had ever shared. The only kiss, she thought sadly,
they ever would share, for she had refused to see him when
he came to the door after that terrible raid, and by now he
would have forgotten all about her.
By now, he would be kissing some other girl.
As it happened, Judy was wrong about Chris. He was not
kissing some other girl. As he stood in his wooden turret on
top of the Royal Beach peering incessantly over the Solent through his binoculars to watch for enemy aircraft, his thoughts were not of other girls, but of Judy herself, and he
was growing more and more impatient.
‘How long’s it going to be before she gets better?’ he
demanded. ‘I saw her aunt again this morning and asked
her, and she says there’s been no change. It doesn’t seem
right, a lovely girl like that deaf for the rest of her life. Can’t they do anything for her?’
Spud Murphy shrugged. ‘No good asking me, mate. I
dunno nothing about it.’
‘Well, I’m getting fed up with it,’ Chris said. He stared
moodily out across the glittering sea towards the Island. ‘We
were going to go out together. I reckon there was a good
chance for us - we got on all right when we were stuck in
that lift.’
‘So we all noticed!’ Spud said with a grin.
‘I thought there was something really special about her,’
Chris went on, ignoring him. He had come in for so much
ribbing over that episode that he barely noticed it now. ‘You
know how you do, sometimes? I thought she was a real
smasher.’
‘Yeah, but that’s months ago now. If she’d wanted to see
you she’d have let you know. If you ask me,’ Spud advised
from a store of experience which comprised a different
girlfriend every week, ‘you oughter forget her and find
yourself some other little popsie. There’s plenty around.
Come to the dance over on the Pier on Saturday, why don’t
you? I’ll fix you up with someone.’
‘No thanks. I don’t want to be fixed up with someone. I
want to see Judy again.’
Spud eyed him. ‘Well, if it’s that bad, why don’t you do
that? Go out and see her. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel.
And if she can’t hear you, tell her some other way.’ He
winked. ‘I’m sure you can think of something!’
Chris put down the binoculars and stared at him. Then
he took Spud’s pencil to take his turn at writing the log and
said, ‘You’re right, Spud! It’s not very often you’re right,
but you’re right this time. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go out to wherever it is she’s staying, in the country, and this time I
won’t take no for an answer. I’ll make her see me. If she’s
not interested after that, I’ll leave her alone - but at least I’ll have tried.’
‘Atta boy!’ Spud said, grinning. He picked up the
binoculars and trained them on the view. ‘Hey, look! What’s
that coming in over the Island? Is it a Dornier or a Heinkel?’
Chris grabbed the glasses back. He stared for a minute,
then punched his friend on the arm.
‘You twerp! It’s a bloody seagull!’
The summer was hot and long, as if to make up for the
bitter winter. In July, it was declared that London had just
had the sunniest day of the century - almost sixteen hours
of it. If there hadn’t been a war on, it would have meant
long, lazy afternoons on the beach at Southsea or walks on
Portsdown Hill. The harbour would have been filled with
sailing dinghies and yachts, and the Solent would have been
a mass of white sails, especially during Cowes Week when
the big yacht races were held and you felt you could almost
walk across to Cowes on their decks, without getting your
feet wet. But all that was just a memory. The last time the
Solent had been filled with little boats was during the
Dunkirk evacuation, and it was now grey warships that
forged their way through the Channel.
But the war was still very much on. The air-raid sirens
were still sounding, although the raids weren’t as heavy as
before. The end of June and beginning of July saw
thousands of incendiaries showered on the city and on
Portsdown Hill, starting a blaze of gorse fires, and a number
of high-explosive bombs were dropped into the sea off
Stamshaw. In August it was announced that tunnels had
been driven deep into Portsdown Hill, beneath the chalk
pits, and three thousand people would be given tickets.
Mothers with children, and people without their own
bunked shelters would get first choice. Jess Budd, who had
her baby Maureen at home, was entitled to go, and so was
Nancy Baxter, who had Micky and Vera, but Jess said she
was happy with the Anderson, and Nancy had her own
reasons for not wanting to be stuck in a tunnel all night.
Everyone was wondering if America would come into the war. Already their aircraft were patrolling the North
Atlantic, searching for U-boats, and their forces had joined
British and Canadian troops in Iceland to help its defence.
All young American men of twenty-one and over were
compelled to register for the ‘draft’ and it seemed as if they
might be preparing to join the Allies. Yet still they held off.
The Japanese threat was one they didn’t want to confront,
and it was feared that if they declared war on Germany it
would open the way for fighting in the Far East.
‘It’s all so complicated,’ Cissie complained. ‘The Japanese
are attacking China now. I mean, what do they have to do
with it all? Why make it all worse?’
‘That’s just what they want to do, isn’t it?’ Dick said,
blowing his nose. The summer weather helped his chest but
now he had hay fever and hardly dared venture outdoors to
enjoy the sunshine. ‘They reckon if they go into China now,
while we’re all busy in Europe and Africa, nobody will be
able to stop them. And they don’t like the Yanks having all
those bases in the South Pacific, either. It’s a bit too close to home for them.’
Cissie was reading the local paper. ‘The Evening News says we’ve got to register for new ration books, by the end of this week, or we won’t get them. What would someone do
who didn’t know, or forgot? Would they just starve to
death?’
‘Nobody’ll be able to forget, with notices up everywhere
and the paper putting in these big adverts,’ Polly said. ‘And
the WVS and Citizens’ Advice Bureau are helping people