Ordeal Read online

  Corbett stood up. ‘Let’s go and see what sort of night it is.’

  Joan went with him to the front door. The wind had dropped. There were no lights anywhere to be seen, except a chink of candle-light from a house up the road. In the darkness the clouds seemed to hang low, ominously. There were no sounds at all.

  The girl shivered. ‘I’ve got the needle to-night,’ she said, laughing tremulously. ‘It feels as if something is waiting to happen.’

  He linked his arm through hers. ‘You’re tired,’ he said gently. ‘We’d better go to bed and get some sleep.’

  ‘The children ought to have something to eat. They’ve not had anything since lunch.’

  He helped her to mix some tinned milk with warm water, and prepare a little meal for the children. They took this up with them to the nursery on a tray, and gave it to the children in bed.

  Phyllis asked: ‘Are we going to have bangs to-night, Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘If there are, we’ll go out to the trench.’

  She thought about it for a minute. ‘I don’t like bangs, Daddy,’ she said at last.

  Joan said: ‘If you’re terribly good, Daddy’s going to take you on the boat.’

  ‘Like last summer?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Will I be able to take my rubber ring, and bathe, Mummy?’

  John said: ‘Am I going on the boat, too, Mummy?’

  ‘He can’t, can he, Mummy? John’s too little to go on the boat, isn’t he, Mummy?’

  ‘Of course he’s not,’ said Corbett. ‘John’s coming on the boat, and Baby, too. But you’ve all got to be very good, or I won’t take you. Now lie down and go to sleep again.’

  It took a quarter of an hour to get them settled off to sleep; there was much chat about the boat. Then Joan and Corbett went down to the kitchen for their supper; they smoked a quick cigarette and went upstairs to bed, she in the nursery and he in his own room.

  He woke about midnight with the first concussion, far off in some distant part of the town. He slipped from his bed practically fully dressed, put on his shoes and went up to the nursery. He found Joan dressing the children.

  There were further explosions in the distance. ‘Take Baby down into the trench,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring the other two.’

  Joan said crossly: ‘I must say, I’m getting a bit tired of this.’

  She took the child and went downstairs. Corbett got the other children dressed as quickly as he could and followed her; the explosions did not come very near. He saw them safely settled down with gas-masks, food, and drink; then he stood for a moment on the lawn above them, looking around.

  ‘Littlejohn,’ he called quietly. ‘Littlejohn! Are you all right?’

  There was no reply. He called again: ‘Littlejohn!’

  In the distance bombs were falling irregularly, not very loud. Gun-fire began to sound away to the southeast and south of them; there seemed to be more guns than he had heard the night before. He waited for a few moments, irresolute, and called again. Then he went back to his own trench.

  In the dim light he peered down at Joan. ‘I don’t know what to do about them.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she enquired. ‘Don’t they answer?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They may still be asleep. Do you think I ought to go and see?’

  ‘They’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Stay here. Don’t go wandering about.’

  Almost immediately the point was settled for him. A vivid sheet of flame sprang up across the garden walls, less than a hundred yards away. He dived for the trench with the explosion and landed in a heap on top of the screaming children. A few fragments hit the car above their heads with sharp, metallic sounds. He crouched down in the trench trying to calm the children; the bombs continued falling very near at hand. He heard a crash of falling masonry.

  He let the children scream to relieve their feelings, and pressed Joan’s hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll be all right here.’

  Presently there came a lull. It seemed to Corbett, dazed and confused, that a dozen bombs must have fallen in their immediate neighbourhood in less than three minutes. In the ensuing calm he stood up and looked out of the trench. He saw a gleam of candle-light in the next house.

  He laughed, and called Joan’s attention to it. ‘That woke old Littlejohn up,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t sleep through that.’

  She laughed with him, a little hysterically. He felt for the whisky flask and poured her out a little in the metal cup.

  ‘Come on—let’s have a drink,’ he said. ‘We need it after that.’

  She took the cup from him in the darkness and drank. As she did so, they heard the sound of voices from the next house; the Littlejohns were coming out to their trench.

  Immediately there came a violent concussion, nearer than any they had known. The earth of their trench rose bodily beneath them, and fell again with a strange, tinkling noise mixed with the blast. They clasped their ears in pain; the children redoubled their screams. Within a few yards of the trench they heard the rumble of a falling wall. Something hit the car above their heads a tearing blow, and fell heavily upon the grass.

  Before they had recovered from that explosion there came another, and another, gradually receding into the distance. They lay propped against the sides of the trench, half blinded with the pain of their ears, stunned, and dazed.

  Presently, and very cautiously, they took their hands from their ears. In the lull that followed, through the noises in their heads, they heard a voice calling to them: ‘Mr. Corbett! Are you there, Mr. Corbett?’

  Joan raised her head. ‘It’s Mrs. Littlejohn,’ she said. ‘Peter, they may be hurt.’

  ‘I’ll go and see.’ He groped in the bottom of the trench. ‘Where’s that basket with the first-aid stuff?’ He called: ‘All right, Mrs. Littlejohn. I’m coming over to you.’

  Joan laid her hand upon his arm. ‘Peter—be careful.’

  He nodded. ‘I must go and see if they’re all right. They’d do the same for us.’

  He got out of the trench, basket in hand; his head was reeling, and he staggered as he walked. There was no wall separating the two gardens, only a heap of rubble on what had been flower-beds. He clambered over this and went up to the Littlejohn’s car, straddling across the trench. There was no movement there.

  ‘Littlejohn?’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

  From the darkness beside the house the woman said: ‘Over here, Mr. Corbett. Do come and see to Ted?’

  Guided by the voice, he found her sitting on the ground, propped up against the side of the house. He stooped down to her. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.

  She said: ‘I got something the matter with my leg, but that ain’t nothing. It’s Ted, Mr. Corbett. I’m afraid he’s hurt real bad—I can’t make him hear me.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Over there, Mr. Corbett.’

  He bent over the body of the man, lying face downwards in a flower-bed. He was still breathing, but heavily and unevenly, with a snoring sound. Corbett rolled him over in the darkness, and began feeling him for broken bones. Presently he discovered a three-inch gash in his scalp. It did not seem to be bleeding to any extent; he felt the skull very delicately, but could not detect any movement.

  He said: ‘I think he’s all right, Mrs. Littlejohn. I believe he’s just knocked out.’

  She said very quietly: ‘He’s been ever such a good husband to me, Mr. Corbett. You wouldn’t think.’

  Bombs were still falling in distant parts of the city. Corbett got up, re-crossed the rubble of the wall, and went back to Joan. ‘Let’s have that whisky,’ he said. ‘Littlejohn’s had a knock on the head, but I think he’ll be all right.’

  He took the flask, and felt his way back through the darkness to the other garden. He knelt down beside the builder and lifted him to a sitting position, propped against his knee. He loosened the starched collar that the man was wearing, even in the midd
le of the night. Then he wet a handkerchief in whisky and water, and began to bathe his face.

  In a few minutes he felt a stir of returning consciousness in the heavy body.

  ‘All right, Mrs. Littlejohn,’ he said. ‘I think he’s coming round.’

  She did not answer; the builder raised his head and seemed to moisten his lips. Corbett put the neck of the flask into his mouth and gave him a drink. ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a knock on the head.’

  In a slow minute the builder raised his hand and felt his head. ‘Love us,’ he said thickly. ‘I should think I bloody well had.’ He stirred in Corbett’s arms. ‘That’s all right—I can manage.’

  Corbett released his hold; the man leaned forward and sat alone. ‘Can you feel if you’re hurt anywhere else?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ said the builder heavily. ‘I can manage. Is the missus all right?’

  ‘She’s hurt her leg,’ said Corbett. ‘If you think you can manage by yourself now, I’ll go and have a look at her.’

  He got up, and crossed over to where the woman was still sitting propped against the wall. He bent and spoke to her; she did not answer. He touched her, and cried in alarm: ‘Littlejohn! Come over here—quick, man!’

  But she was already dead. The bomb had fallen on or near their greenhouse. A flying fragment of the glass had sheared through all her clothes and wounded her behind the knee. She had bled to death, quietly and unostentatiously, as in everything that she had done.

  It was incredible to them; they worked for a long time before they would admit defeat, while the bombs continued falling, sometimes near, sometimes far away.

  Presently the builder picked her up in his arms and, staggering a little, carried her into the house and upstairs to the bedroom, where the candle was still burning. He laid her on the ornate, gilded iron bed beneath a picture of the ‘Stag at Bay’ and a text in a wood Oxford frame that told them ‘God is Love’, and covered her with a counterpane.

  Then they had done all they could do.

  Corbett touched the builder on the shoulder. ‘Come down into our trench for the night,’ he said gently. ‘It’s safer down there.’

  The builder said: ‘I’ll stay here for a while, thanking you, all the same.’

  Corbett hesitated. ‘You’re quite sure? It would be better in the trench, you know.’

  The man shook his head. ‘You go back to your family, Mr. Corbett. I’ll be all right.’ He said: ‘I want to sit with her a bit.’

  Corbett went down into the garden, and back into his own trench across the rubble. He told Joan what had happened. ‘Leave him alone,’ she said. ‘It’s best that way.’

  They sat in the trench for about two hours after that, aching and wet, cold and sad. In the window of the house next door the candle burned on, flickering in the draughts. From time to time the bombs fell in their neighbourhood, none very near; the distant gun-fire was continuous, and apparently quite ineffective. At last came the long lull that they knew from experience meant the end.

  ‘It’s over now,’ he said at the end of twenty minutes. ‘We can go back to bed.’

  They got the children up out of the trench, muddy and exhausted, took them back into the house, washed them in warm water, and put them to bed. Then they went down into the kitchen.

  ‘Let’s have something to eat,’ said Corbett.

  ‘All right.’ She looked at him irresolutely. ‘I just hate to think of him in there, alone,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t come and have a meal with us, would he?’

  Corbett shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t want to do that.’

  ‘Do you think I could take him a tray?’

  ‘You might do that. If so, have a look at his head. He’s got a nasty flesh wound in his scalp. Had I better come too?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think I’ll go alone. Start cooking something I can eat when I get back.’

  She cut a few sandwiches and warmed up some coffee and some milk. Then she fetched bandages and lint, and went with the tray out of the front door and round to the next house. She entered the hall and stood for a moment in the dim, shadowy darkness, not knowing where to put the tray down. Then there was a movement on the floor above, a door opened upstairs with a gleam of light, and the builder came slowly down the stairs, carrying the candle.

  Joan said: ‘It’s only me, Mr. Littlejohn—Mrs. Corbett. I brought you round some hot coffee. I want you to drink it.’

  He came down and stood beside her. ‘Eh, that’s real kind, Mrs. Corbett,’ he said heavily.

  She led him into the sitting-room. ‘Sit down and drink it up,’ she ordered. ‘Then I want to have a look at your head.’

  He obeyed her, silently. There was a spirit stove and a kettle in the grate; she lit it to warm the water. When he had finished eating she cut the straggling grey hair away and washed the wound with a little antiseptic; then she bandaged it.

  ‘I’ll do it again to-morrow,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t want to be here to-morrow,’ he said heavily. ‘You want to get away to Hamble, to that boat.’

  She caught her breath. ‘If only we could …’

  He stood ponderously erect, the bandaging finished. ‘I been thinking it out, sitting up there with her. I got to help you get away now, you and the kiddies and Mr. Corbett. That’s what I got to do.’

  He laid a heavy hand upon her shoulder. ‘Go in and have a sleep now. I’ll be along and have a talk with Mr. Corbett in the morning.’ He turned away. ‘I want to thank you for what you done for me, and for her,’ he said, with his back towards her.

  Joan said: ‘Please don’t, Mr. Littlejohn,’ and went away.

  In her own house Corbett had prepared a little meal for her in the kitchen. ‘We’ve got to get away from here to-day, Peter,’ she said. ‘It’s no good staying on here and waiting for it.’

  He nodded. ‘You’re quite right. We’ll go to-day.’

  She stared around. ‘We shan’t be able to take much with us.’

  ‘It’ll only be for a short time, and Hamble’s only seven miles away. We can come back here every day if we want to—to see that everything is still all right.’

  She laughed bitterly. ‘Leave the house empty with no glass in any of the windows. Anyone will be able to walk in and pinch anything. But I suppose we can’t help that.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll take the silver to the bank. Perhaps Littlejohn will be able to help us get the windows boarded up a bit more.’

  They went to bed.

  Corbett slept only for a short time; he got up with the first light, at about six o’clock. Joan was sleeping, and he did not wake her. He dressed and went out into the streets. There was a great deal more damage in his neighbourhood than there had been before. Ambulances were still about the streets collecting the wounded from the houses and the gardens; the cars were much hampered in their work by the unrepaired bomb-holes in the streets. In places it was impossible for the ambulance to approach the house. Over by the University there seemed to be a considerable fire; dense volumes of smoke were wreathing up into a grey sky.

  He met and talked to one or two people that he knew. All were now resolute to get out of the city. It seemed to Corbett that the ambulance crews alone of all the services were now working for the city as a whole. Everyone seemed to be concentrating on his individual needs, to the exclusion of his public duty. ‘I’ve been with the fire service these last two nights,’ one man told him, tired and worn. ‘We haven’t half had some work to do. But they’ll have to get along without me, from now on. I’m taking the wife to Romsey.’

  When he got back to his house, Littlejohn was there, his car drawn up outside his door. He was bare-headed but for the white bandage that Joan had put on; his clothes were dirty and there were streaks of blood on his grey face.

  He said: ‘There’s no cordon on the roads now, Mr. Corbett. You can get through to Hamble.’ He hesitated, and then said: ‘You want to get there quick, while the going’s good.’

  Corb
ett asked: ‘When did they take the cordon off?’

  ‘Last night. When I said I heard that shooting.’

  ‘Was that there?’

  The builder nodded. ‘I said they’d have trouble at them barriers, didn’t I? Never heard of such a daft thing to do.’

  Corbett was appalled. ‘You mean, the troops fired on the crowd?’

  The builder shook his head. ‘From what I could make out, the crowd fired on the troops. Then they gave way, and let them through.’

  They stood in silence for a minute. ‘It’s just another thing,’ said the builder. ‘You don’t want to think too much of it.’

  He glanced up at the house. ‘I took a run out there this morning, just to see,’ he said. ‘I got something I been meaning to give you, but I didn’t want to in front of Mrs. Corbett.’ He fumbled in the pocket of his raincoat and pulled out a very large, black automatic pistol, with four clips of cartridges. ‘There.’

  Corbett took it from him and examined it diffidently. ‘It’s awfully kind of you. Don’t you want it for yourself?’

  The builder shook his head. ‘I shan’t want nothing of that. But when I saw it I thought—well, you never know. Times is different now to what they was a week ago, and you’ve got your family to think of. I brought it home for you.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  The builder said evasively: ‘I found it. I’ve been looking around for a bit of stuff to give it a pull through—you can see, the barrel’s dirty.’ He took it from Corbett, pulled the block, and squinted down it. ‘See? It was fired last night. But you don’t want to worry about that. Just get a bit of stuff and give it a pull through.’ He gave it back to the solicitor.

  Corbett persuaded him to come in and have breakfast before Joan came down with the children. They cooked a meal of bacon and fried bread and coffee over the Primus stove. The builder said very little till the meal was over.

  Then he said: ‘You want to hurry up and get away, Mr. Corbett.’

  The solicitor nodded. ‘I’m going this morning.’ He paused, and then asked gently: ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I got to … make arrangements for her.’ There was a short pause. ‘And after that I’m going back into the Army. I’m not that old, and I was a company sergeant-major in the Machine-Gun Corps last time. They got new guns now, I hear, but I could soon learn them.’ He paused. ‘I figured it out when I was sitting up there with her last night, and the bombs going and all. And I thought she’d want me to go back into the Army, like I was before we met.’ He was silent for a moment.