Rule Britannia (11 page)

Emma continued staring. Was she going mad, or was he?

“I’d better explain,” he said. “The fact is, we’ve got roadblocks everywhere, there have been several incidents throughout the county, and we’re stopping all cars and examining passes. I’m in charge of a post five miles from here, on the main Poldrea-Liskeard road, and a Dr. Summers showed his pass to me and said he would be calling here later on, that your grandmother had sent for him, a suspected heart condition. So, as I was relieved shortly afterwards, I thought it only courteous to enquire. Has the doctor seen her yet?”

“No,” said Emma, “not yet.”

Suppose the oilskin-clad figure of Mao Tse-tung should suddenly emerge from the plowed field beyond the garden?

“I guess he won’t be long,” said the lieutenant kindly. “You seem rather shocked yourself.”

“Yes,” said Emma, “I am.”

She held on to the door for support.

“Gee, it’s tough,” continued the lieutenant. “I do hope he won’t find much wrong. She’ll need to lie up, no doubt, and she won’t like that.”

“No,” said Emma, “she won’t.”

The rain was still lashing down. He obviously hoped he would be asked inside.

“Do forgive me,” said Emma, “but we’re rather rushed off our feet with this… this happening. She’s rather demanding. I have to sit by her bed.” She backed away from the doorway.

“I understand.” He seemed disappointed, though. “Just one thing. You’re not mad at me for last night, are you? I guess I got… maybe I was too free.”

“No… no, not at all.” Oh Lord, what was she saying?

“Fine… Then I’ll call again, to enquire after your grandmother…” he smiled, “but on you too.” The look of self-assurance had returned to his rather square face, his smile suggested that he and Emma were in league. “We’ll get together and have a good time.”

Then he saluted again, and walked back to the staff car in the drive. Conceited ass, she thought, have a good time indeed… Does that mean he expects a clinch down in the basement?

She was definitely off him. Had never been on. Thank heaven for one thing, which was that Mad and Sam had not returned during Wally Sherman’s call. Wally. There was no doubt it was an idiotic name.

Scarcely had the lieutenant disappeared up the drive than Dr. Summers’s Peugeot came rolling down it. He had evidently taken Mad’s telephone call in all sincerity, because he only saw urgent cases in the morning after surgery. He’s not going to be too pleased, thought Emma, and I don’t know what I’m going to say to him. Dr. Summers did not ring the bell. He walked straight into the hall and threw down his raincoat. He was a man in his late fifties, stoutish, with a good head of hair. Patients thought his manner brusque until they had learned to trust him.

“Hullo, Emma,” he said. “How is the patient? Shall I go straight up? I told her to stay in bed.”

“Look,” said Emma, “I think you’d better come into the music room.” She shut the door behind him and drew a deep breath. “Mad sent for you on false pretences, but we do need you.”

He did not blink an eyelid. He went and stood over by the fireplace.

“False pretences?” he echoed. “Oh well, it’s not the first time. She might have chosen a less inconvenient day. What’s she up to now?”

“It’s Terry,” said Emma, “he’s broken his leg.”

“Right. Why didn’t she say so? I’ve brought something for a heart condition in my bag but nothing for a broken leg. Too bad.”

“It’s not that easy. She didn’t know about the broken leg when she rang you up. The fact is…” Emma paused—must she embark on the whole story yet again? “The fact is,” she continued, “it all started at the firework party last night.”

“Oh, that,” Dr. Summers smiled. “I heard all about that. I gather your lot produced the guy. Did they throw the fireworks in the Commander’s car too?”

“Well…”

“Listen here, Emma,” he glanced at his watch, “I’m pushed for time. Does your grandmother want to see me or not, and where is Terry? Is he in his room? How do you know the leg is broken?”

“He’s not in his room,” said Emma, “nor is Mad. They’re both in a hut in the wood with the beachcomber.”

Dr. Summers stared at her steadily. “I’ve sorted out a few of your family troubles in my time, but this is a new one.”

Emma embarked upon the case history, and was winding to her conclusion when Dr. Summers, who hadn’t sat down but was looking out of the window, observed, “Here she comes now, but she’s on her own. I’m surprised she didn’t try carrying Terry on her back like your beachcomber.”

They went out into the hall to meet her. Mad took off her cap and shook herself like a shaggy dog.

“Hullo, Bevil, I didn’t expect you so soon, how splendid. Em darling, that Welshman is heaven! He’s been telling me all about how he used to sing in a choir at Abernethy. He’s got a beautiful voice. I asked him why he had never trained professionally but apparently he had a sad love affair and ran away to sea. Dottie? Let’s have lunch right away, I’m starving. Dr. Summers will be staying.”

“Dr. Summers will do nothing of the kind.” The doctor put his hand on Mad’s shoulder and pushed her before him into the music room. “I must say that for a woman of nearly eighty with a heart condition you look remarkably well. If you’ll only stop talking for a moment we can sort things out. Terry has broken his leg, right? Your broken-hearted Welsh choirmaster has put it in splints, right? He hasn’t informed you what type of break it is and he probably doesn’t know, and a car can’t get through that jungle down there so Terry must be brought up on a stretcher. Finally, and this seems to me to be the crux, you’re afraid the marine commandos may be after Terry because of what happened last night, hence the cloak-and-dagger business. Now tell Dottie to serve your lunch, and ask Joe to come with me to the hut. He’s got more common sense than the rest of you. When I have seen Terry I shall decide what is to be done.”

Mad smiled across at Emma. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I do the right thing by sending for Bevil?”

“One of these days,” said her doctor, “I shall disoblige you. And you can sort out your own mess.”

It was after two before Emma and her grandmother sat down to lunch, and Mad switched on her radio to hear the news headlines. The announcer’s voice sounded excited, his patch of country was in the news.

“Following the explosions in the Falmouth area, there have been two more, one near Camborne and a second in the clay district, a mile from Nanpean. Other disturbances have been reported from South Wales. It is believed that Celtic factions among the population are taking this opportunity of giving vent to their dissatisfaction with the Coalition Government and the formation of USUK. Elsewhere the country is quiet. The President of the United States—I beg your pardon, of USUK—gave a dinner party and reception for Her Majesty the Queen at the White House last night… Football. The match between Exeter University and Plymouth has been postponed owing to weather conditions. The next news bulletin from the southwest will be at three o’ clock.”

Nanpean… Emma remembered that one of Terry’s friends from the technical school came from Nanpean. What was it Andy had told her last night about Terry’s friends knowing where to find gelignite? Best forget it. And anyway, Terry was not involved. That broken leg, in the long run, might save them trouble. Which, unless you could be dispassionate, was a pretty hard-hearted thing to acknowledge.

As they got up from the table after lunch footsteps suggested that the doctor had returned.

“Come on, let’s hear the worst.”

Her grandmother made for the stairs leading to the hall, Emma following. Dr. Summers was already in the cloakroom, standing by the telephone. He nodded at them both.

“The leg’s broken all right,” he said. “I’m going to have a word with Matron at the hospital. She’ll fix him up with a bed.”

“How do we get him there?” asked Emma.

“Leave that to me,” said the doctor. “By the way, I brought Andy back with me, he’s breathing fire and wants to get every marine on sight. Find him something to do. Hullo, Matron?”

Emma grabbed hold of Andy and marched him through the kitchen towards the playroom.

“Help Sam with the pigeon, he got loose,” she told him.

“The pigeon’s not priority,” said Andy fiercely. “I’m going to sharpen my arrows.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t have archery practice this weather.”

“Who said anything about practice? Emma, do you know the beachcomber has a shortwave radio he made himself and can get frequencies that we can’t? He was telling Terry and me all about it, after Madam left. And Terry told me about the fight. He gave that Corporal Wagg a terrific bashing.”

“Probably. It didn’t do Terry much good, though, did it? Now run along.”

By the time she returned to the hall Dr. Summers was already on his way down the path towards his car.

“Where’s he going?” asked Emma.

“He’s got to give Terry an injection,” replied Mad. “He hasn’t the right stuff in his bag. He says he won’t be more than a quarter of an hour, and he’ll be back.”

“How is he going to get Terry to the car?”

“Oh, he fixed that with the beachcomber. I called him Taffy, by the way—he was delighted. He and Joe are rigging up a stretcher between them.”

I’m beginning to sympathize with Dottie, thought Emma. Things happen too fast in this house. The rain was easing off, which was one good thing, although it was blowing just as hard. She wondered if she should put on her mac and boots and go down to the woods to help with the stretcher, and then, just as she had made up her mind to do so, she saw the little party advancing through the gap in the hedge by the plowed field.

“Taffy’s a genius,” declared Mad, “he can put his hand to anything.”

Terry, covered with a blanket and the beachcomber’s oilskin, was being borne along on a hurdle—or was it an old bedstead?—Joe in front, Mr. Willis behind. They came to rest where there was cover under the lime trees by the drive, and Emma and her grandmother went down to meet them. Mr. Willis was hatless and so was Mad, and with their shocks of white hair blowing in the wind they could easily be brother and sister, Emma thought, and she was thankful Colin was safe in the playroom.

“He’s stood his journey well,” said Mr. Willis. “I don’t think we’ve shaken him up too badly, have we, boyo?”

Terry tried to smile. He looked very white. Joe said nothing. He was arranging the blanket so that it didn’t rest on Terry’s leg. Mr. Willis stared critically up at the house, and Emma realized that despite the fact that he only lived at the bottom of the wood it was probably his first sight of it.

“You feel the wind up here,” he said. “Nothing like as snug as my place.”

“Oh, this is nothing,” replied Mad. “When it really blows we have to batten down just as if we were on board ship. The whole house rocks.”

“I can well believe it,” he answered, staring at Mad with—was it astonishment or respect? Emma wondered if he was making a comparison with the star of forty years ago. She wished Bevil Summers would hurry up. They formed such a curious group huddled here under the lime trees. Joe looked disapproving and Terry whiter still.

“Of course in old days,” said Mad, “it was a regular smugglers’ haunt. We have a basement where they used to store the kegs of rum. There’s one old wall, you can’t see it from here…”

She seized the beachcomber by the sleeve and pointed, and she’s off, sighed Emma, there’ll be no stopping her. Further revelations, luckily, were cut short by the welcome arrival of the doctor’s car.

“Ah,” he said, “you’ve got him here intact. Well done. Now, Terry, show what you’re made of. Stand back, everyone.”

He advanced with his bag and proceeded to kneel beside the makeshift stretcher.

“I got through the roadblock,” he continued, glancing up at Mad, “by telling the chap on duty that I had to return to the surgery for a very strong sedative to quieten an old lady who was giving me trouble. I don’t consider I was telling a lie. Incidentally, I understand from my secretary that the marines are picking up and questioning all youths between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one who have any connection with the technical school. Gelignite has been found on a couple of them. So, Terry my boy, you slept at home last night, and unfortunately, when you opened the gate to me just now, as I was driving hurriedly in to bring the sedative to your ailing parent by adoption, I somehow succeeded in knocking you down with my car. My guilt is such that I insist on keeping an eye on you myself in the local hospital rather than have you transferred to Truro, where, I don’t mind betting, the commandos would sit at your bedside with notebook and pencil. Now then, this won’t hurt.”

He gave the injection, while Emma, who disliked jabs on principle, looked away. It was no use, however. She felt a buzzing in her ears and the world went black. The next thing she knew was that she was sitting on the drive and Mad was forcing her head between her knees.

“I might have known,” her grandmother was saying. “She never could stand injections.”

Emma raised her head and saw that all was over. The doctor and Mr. Willis had lifted Terry into the back of the car, and the doctor was patting Mr. Willis on the shoulder. “Good work,” he said crisply. Then the beachcomber picked up the bedstead stretcher and began to plod away towards the orchard.

“Taffy,” shouted Mad, “come back. I haven’t thanked you for all you’ve done.”

But Mr. Willis took no notice. Like Folly the Dalmatian, his hearing was not what it had been.

Dr. Summers, with Terry comfortably arranged, looked down at Emma. “You told me when you were ten years old,” he said, “that you’d like to be a nurse. If you want to make the grade you’ll have to do rather better than you’re doing now. As for you…” he turned to her grandmother, “you’re supposed to have a serious heart condition, and I warn you that if I get another S.O.S. from Trevanal to say you’re in trouble I shall ignore the signal. Look after them, Joe. Good-bye.”

As his car went up the drive the telephone started ringing. Emma, stung by the doctor’s allusion to her childhood fancy, went to answer it, despite her feeling of weakness below the knees. It was Myrtle Trembath.