Rule Britannia (23 page)

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Rather too long a pause.

“I am afraid I have no information on this,” came the answer finally. “It may possibly have some connection with the fact that Poldrea is at the moment a base for USUK forces, and they are in charge of security in the neighborhood. I don’t know if there has been any threat to the installations in the harbor, but I may be able to find out if this is so and ring you back.”

“I’d be obliged if you would do that,” Mad answered, “but before you go, you said USUK forces. The marine commandos here are all American.”

The Member for Mid-Cornwall gave a little laugh. “You must bring yourself up to date,” she said. “American, British, it’s all the same thing today. We are all USUK. The sooner we become used to this, the better it will be for all concerned.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Oh come, don’t pretend to be ignorant,” replied Mrs. Moorhouse. “I feel sure your son has explained the current situation to you. This is a matter of life or death, as you well know. It’s not a case of retiring gracefully from a troublesome association that had become burdensome, as we did from the European Community. USUK is our lifeline, and I am glad to say the majority of the people in this country welcome it. Historically it’s a proud moment for both nations. Union once more, after nearly two hundred years.”

“Don’t you bet on it,” said Mad. “Some of us may make a Declaration of Independence too, and find our own George Washington.” She replaced the receiver with a bang and turned to Emma. “That fixed her. Now we’ll wait for fifteen minutes and see what she comes back with.”

The telephone rang again in twenty minutes. Emma and her grandmother might have been switchboard operators, their reaction was so prompt.

“Mrs. Moorhouse?”

“Yes. Well, it is as I thought. Security measures have been tightened up in and around Poldrea for a very good reason. I’m afraid I can’t go into details. It concerns a missing marine—you probably know what I am referring to.”

“Yes, I think so,” Mad replied.

“In that case you realize it is a very serious affair, and the authorities cannot risk it happening again. It’s unfortunate for the many hundreds of innocent people who have to suffer the consequences, but there it is.”

“I see.” This time the pause was on this end of the line. “How long are the restrictions to continue, Mrs. Moorhouse?”

“I have no idea. The decision lies with the USUK forces in your vicinity. Now, if you will forgive me, I must ring off, I am leaving for London almost immediately.”

“Any message, Mrs. Moorhouse,” Mad persisted, “for your constituents in Poldrea who returned you to Parliament? I don’t speak for myself, because I didn’t vote for you, but I know a number of hardworking people who did, and who I am sure would welcome your advice.”

The Member for Mid-Cornwall must have turned to somebody at her side, because there was a slight pause and a murmur, as if Mrs. Moorhouse, exasperated, was making some remark under her breath. Then, “My advice is to cooperate with USUK forces, to put up with any slight inconvenience, and to report to the forces, or our own police, any further suspicious occurrences that may be noticed in the district.”

“Thank you,” said Mad. “Enjoy your Thanksgiving celebrations on Thursday.” She replaced the receiver with a triumphant smile. “I always enjoy having the last word,” she said. “It’s been one of my pleasures through life, and thank God it doesn’t fade with increasing years.”

I dare say, thought Emma, but it doesn’t really get us anywhere, and the only people who are going to come out of this comfortably will be those who live on a direct bus route or own a deep freeze.

“I warned Madam last summer,” said Dottie later on, “that she should buy one, and it would save running down to Poldrea for every blessed thing we need. But no, she’d done without one all these years, she told me, and she wasn’t going to start now.”

“Cheer up, Dottie,” said Terry, who as a man of leisure had installed himself in the only armchair the kitchen provided. “We’re going to live on beetroot and cabbage from now on. You’ll be so full of wind you’ll be able to act as an extractor fan.”

Mad, wandering into the kitchen, rumpled his hair. “I don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss,” she said. “Think of people cast away on desert islands with nothing but coconuts.”

“We have no coconuts,” observed Terry.

“Well, what about snails? One of the most expensive things you can order in a French restaurant. Escargots à la bordelaise… I remember once in Paris…”

“Go on, go on, I can’t wait.” Terry, feigning intense excitement, leaned forward in his chair.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “I am serious. There must be hundreds, thousands, of snails in the garden. If really pushed to extremes one could live on them for days.”

Dottie, who always disapproved when Terry baited his benefactress, began rattling the forks in the kitchen drawer. “I’m very sorry,” she said, “but anyone who thinks I’m going to start cooking snails for a household of nine can think again.” The household of nine was Dottie’s big thing when pushed to extremes.

Just then there came a sound of heavy boots clumping up the back stairs and Joe appeared at the door. He still wore a determined, even angry, expression.

“Have those kids been playing around with the stopcock?” he asked, addressing himself to Terry. “I can’t get any water outside for washing off the car.”

“How would I know?” shrugged Terry. “They’ll do anything when they’re not watched.”

“It’s hardly likely, Joe,” said Mad. “They didn’t play outside yesterday afternoon when they came back from school, and they wouldn’t have had time this morning. What do you mean, you can’t get any water? There’s probably an air lock.”

Joe’s manner softened as his eyes fell on her. He had not noticed she was standing by the door at the other end of the kitchen.

“No, Madam, there’s not an air lock, there’s just no water.”

Dottie moved to the sink and turned on both taps. The hot water ran as usual, but the cold, after a sparse trickle, stopped altogether.

“That proves there’s an air lock,” Mad declared. “What an added bore. We shall have to send for the plumber unless you can blow it out, but it needs a special pump, doesn’t it?”

“It isn’t an air lock,” Joe repeated obstinately, “there isn’t any water.”

Mad narrowed her eyes, then turned and made for the cloakroom.

“What now?” murmured Terry. “The White House?”

Mad’s purpose appeared to be more practical. She was about to telephone the Water Board. Emma and the others waited in the kitchen until her call had finished. She returned, her face inscrutable.

“So that’s that,” she announced. “A fine new regulation. Water to be cut in the Poldrea district except for one hour every day. No reason given. The order to the Water Board came from the port authorities.”

“Meaning exactly who?” asked Terry.

“The Commandant, I suppose. According to Jack Trembath they’ve taken over the port and everything connected with it.”

“I don’t follow,” said the bewildered Dottie. “Why should he want to cut the water? Rationing of supplies is bad enough.”

“Punishment, love,” answered Terry. “We’re all of us bad boys and girls in this part of Cornwall, and that includes you. Anyway, it’s splendid news for those who don’t want to wash, which goes for Andy, Sam, Colin and Ben. I don’t need a bath.”

“Shut up,” said Joe. He was thinking, and it took a moment or two. Then he turned to Mad. “I’m going to get the old well going,” he said.

Everyone stared. “You can’t, Joe dear, it hasn’t been used for years,” demurred Mad. “It’s concreted over. And the water would be filthy.”

“I’ll take a pick to the concrete, and the water won’t be filthy, there’s a spring runs under the house,” Joe returned. “Come on, Terry, stop sitting on your backside and give me some help.” He clumped back again down the stairs.

“Anyone for typhoid?” smiled Terry as he seized his crutch and followed his elder.

Emma had never known him to agree before to one of Joe’s hard labor suggestions without loud protestations, nor had she known Joe to snap an order rather than make a mild request when he needed something done.

Mad turned to Emma with a smile. “I always knew it was there,” she said. “It only needed tapping to bring it out.”

“The water from the well?” asked Emma, puzzled.

“No, darling idiot, Joe’s qualities of leadership.”

The eardrum-splitting crashes that came from the basement throughout the day only served to reinforce Mad’s faith in the eldest of her adopted brood and his apparently willing henchman, as they chipped and smashed at the concrete surround to the old well in the cellar. Folly, her sense of hearing rudely awakened, limped from the most comfortable chair in the library overhead and with a senile whine of protest gave tongue at the top of the basement stairs. Ben, surfeited with a midday diet of sausages, fell asleep in the playroom on top of his own small sack of fir cones, and by the time his companions returned from school—no Jesus talk today, no think-in, to Andy’s relief but Colin’s disappointment—Joe and Terry had not only uncovered the old well but had drawn to the surface three buckets of crystal clear water.

“There,” said Joe as everyone crowded into the cellar to applaud, “I knew it could be done. I knew we wouldn’t go short. They can cut us off from the mains forever, we’ll survive.”

He shook his hair out of his eyes. His face was flushed from his hours of exertion. How strange, Emma thought, he looks really handsome, and Terry, leaning on his crutches beside him, somehow almost ordinary in comparison.

Sam was the only one to appear disturbed. “It’s all right for us. What about the animals at the farm, the cattle, the sheep? You know the trough between the plowed field and the grazing ground that gets piped water? If none comes through the animals can’t drink.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Mad. “Good for you, Sam. We’ll have to keep the trough filled.”

“They have a well at the farm,” Joe told them. “Mr. Trembath won’t go short. Anyway, I’ll go down there presently and find out.”

“You know what,” said Andy. “If we’re cut off the mains here, and everyone else at Poldrea, the marines will be without water too.”

“I’m afraid not.” Terry shook his head. “The port has quite a separate supply, from another source. I remember Ron Blewett telling me that weeks ago. I don’t know how he knew, except his father used to work there.”

“The thing would be,” suggested Andy, with a glance at Mad, “to get some gely and blow up the port. Then the marines really would be in trouble.”

“Yes,” said Joe, “and so would we.”

The time had obviously come to call a halt to the discussion. The well had yielded water, that was enough. Every pail and bucket and jug the household could produce was brought into service, and the various receptacles placed where they would be of most use. It was only then that Dottie announced that her own prize possession, a plastic pail that she kept for emergencies under the kitchen sink, was missing. So were Colin and Ben.

“They were downstairs five minutes ago,” said Sam. “I saw them. Colin was outside the back door emptying the dustbin.”

“Please, dear,” implored Dottie, turning to Emma.

The dustbin was on its side, and Emma could hear the prattle of young voices coming from the cellar. Her heart misgave her. The well, covered for so many years, was now open to all. She ran through to prevent some terrible accident that might yet turn the triumph to disaster. The two children were standing side by side. Ben had a piece of old curtain draped over his head and around his shoulders. Colin, Dottie’s plastic prize in his left hand, was emptying the dregs from the bottle of chablis that Pa had finished up.

“What are you doing?” Emma cried, her panic subsiding.

Colin looked up, aggrieved. “We didn’t have our Jesus-talk today so we’re having it now,” he said. “Ben is my mother Mary and it’s the wedding at Cana. I’m Jesus, turning the water into wine.”

If the new authorities in charge of Poldrea harbor thought they had the community licked, they reckoned without the minority in their midst. Jack Trembath had not been a champion wrestler in his day for nothing. His skill in throwing a Breton opponent to the ground, as he had done once, might not stand him in much stead today against the might of the commandos, but it had taught him to think quickly, and to organize. The ban on private cars would not be in force until the following day, the Wednesday, and on the Tuesday afternoon, while Joe and Terry had been uncovering the well in the Trevanal cellar, Jack had telephoned all the neighboring farmers and had bidden them to an emergency meeting that evening. Some twenty-five out of the thirty accepted and turned up, three were willing but could not make it and sent their sons as substitutes, the remaining two, suspecting trouble, excused themselves by saying they had no wish to be involved.

Joe had gone down to the farm earlier to find out if they were all right for water, and Mad, Emma and Terry were sitting in the library with the television turned on, hoping for some enlightenment. There was little new, and certainly nothing about the tightening-up of regulations in a minute portion of the Cornish seaboard. “The whole country is busy preparing for the Thanksgiving Celebrations on Thursday,” the announcer said. “In Devon and Cornwall, as elsewhere, the union will be marked in various ways. Admiral Jollif will entertain officers of the joint Fleets to luncheon at Admiralty House, Plymouth, and there will be a reception in County Hall, Truro, at which the Members of Parliament for Cornwall will be present. Among other regional celebrations will be a luncheon party to be given by the officers and warrant officers of the marine commando unit stationed at Poldrea. Mrs. Hubbard, area representative for the Cultural-Get-Together movement, will be the guest of honor at the luncheon, which will take place at the Sailor’s Rest.”

Emma switched off. “I can’t believe it,” she exclaimed, just as Joe came in, his face alight with information.

“Mr. Trembath ought to be in Parliament instead of Mrs. Moorhouse,” he said. “You’ve never seen anything like it, it was terrific. How everyone got into the house I don’t know. Half of them were standing up against the wall, and some of us sitting on the floor, and some on the stairs. Most of them came for a laugh, I think, in the first place, but they soon learned differently, when Mr. Trembath started speaking to them. “Are we Cornishmen or bloody suckers?” he asked, and there was a great yell, ‘Cornishmen!’ even from poor Mr. Swiggs, who’s as deaf as a post. Anyway, after Mr. Trembath had harangued them for twenty minutes they were all agreed to stand by what he laid down. No more milk to the depot, nothing to the supermarket, nothing to the camp, those who have their own transport will deliver to households within their own radius and be paid at the door. Oh yes, they’ll lose a hell of a lot by it, they just don’t care. Only those households who agree to protest against the restrictions will be able to buy milk.”

He looked about him, smiling. Emma had never known him so sure of himself, Joe of all people, diffident, silent in company, even among those of his own age.

“
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre,
” murmured Mad. “I wonder. I doubt if they can achieve much except hurt themselves.”

“Oh, don’t be so damping!” exclaimed Terry. “By God, I wish I’d been there. Don’t you see, if only people who agree to protest can buy milk, we’ll sort out those who resist from those who suck up. And everyone will start talking about it.”

“What about water?” Mad asked. “How will the farmers manage for water?”

“Most of them, like us, have their own wells,” replied Joe. “And if one of them goes short, his nearest neighbor will oblige. The animals won’t suffer, that’s agreed. Any surplus water, the animals get it.”

Mad stretched herself full-length in her chair, Folly humped beside her. “The marines will have powdered milk, thousands of tins of it. It’s not going to hurt them at all.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Joe. “They drink gallons down at the camp, the farmers were saying so. They go around like kids, with straws in the bottles, sipping it in gulps.”

Terry got up and began swinging to and fro on his crutches like something caged. “If only we could hatch up a plan that would really hurt them. Send their bloody ship sky-high.”

“Terry dearest,” Mad put out her hand to stop his crutch, which was hitting her on the ankle, “the Japanese tried that at Pearl Harbor before you were born, and look what they got in return some three years later. Bigger and better explosions won’t get us anywhere. We must make it a war of attrition and see who cracks first. Have all the farmers gone home yet?” She turned to Joe.

“Some left when I did, but most were getting merry and having a singsong. I think they were going to have a rush at the last and beat the midnight ban by a few minutes.”

“H’m,” said Mad thoughtfully, and then, rising from her chair, “I’ll have a word with Jack Trembath before he bids them Godspeed. When it comes to protest his Breton associates of old could give him a tip or two.”

She left the library for the telephone. Terry flopped down in the vacant chair beside the slumbering Folly.

“What can she do, or a bunch of farmers?” he muttered. “What we need is gelignite, and stacks of it. Andy had a point when he suggested blowing up the port.”

“What about the people who live nearby?” asked Joe. “Remember, if the port went, they’d go too.”

“Was it Dottie,” Terry suggested, “who coined the phrase ‘You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs’?”

“No,” said Emma, “it was a general in world war one, and people seem to have followed his advice ever since. What you two don’t seem to realize, and neither does Mad, is that the majority of people down here, and probably in the country as a whole, appear to want this USUK business, and whether we do or not we’re lumbered with it.”

The two boys stared at her. “You aren’t for it, surely?” asked Terry.

“Of course I’m not.” It was Emma’s turn to get up from the sofa and pace about the room. “I hate the whole thing as much as you do. It’s just that a handful of people are so helpless, they can’t achieve anything on their own. You must have a powerful organization behind you to get anywhere, that’s been proved time and time again.”

“I’m not so sure,” Joe pondered. “I believe if people formed little groups and just helped each other, became self-supporting among their neighbors, they could get by without having anything to do with the world outside at all. We’d grow our own food, burn our own fuel, use wool from our own sheep for clothes…”

“Oh, shucks,” scoffed Terry. “Catch our own Black Death from the dirt and stink of it. Hell, this is the last quarter of the twentieth century, after all.”

They were still hot in argument when Mad returned from the telephone.

“I’m glad I spoke to him,” she said. “Apparently from midnight on we shall get our telephones tapped and our conversations recorded. This is official—Jack Trembath had it straight from one of his farmer friends, whose daughter works in the telephone exchange. So… the screws are on, or whatever the expression is. Just Poldrea, mark you. We are the scapegoats. I think they, and by “they” I mean the marines, imagine that by doing this to the neighborhood somebody is going to turn informer and come clean about the dead corporal. The guilty person will be caught and punished, the informer recompensed, and the scapegoat community revert to normal, or as normal as USUK allows us to be.”

All this, thought Emma, because of an arrow. All this because a boy’s fantasy world turned him, for one single moment in time, into a killer.

“If that’s what they’re doing it for,” said Joe, “they’ll have to wait a hell of a time.”

Mad smiled. “That’s what I feel,” she said. “In the meantime, I think we might have a little fun at the expense of the Commandant and the marines. I made a suggestion to Jack Trembath, and he was going to put it to the vote among his farmer friends who were still in the house. If what I suggested goes with a swing, which I hope it does, then he’s going to ring me back in a few minutes.”

Now what, Emma wondered? Pa at this moment in New York—or was it Rio?—having a bath after his flight and a soothing drink before dining at some flash restaurant with his fellow tycoons, and saying to them with a laugh, perhaps, “My old mother, you know, bats, completely bats, my daughter has to lock her up in her room.” It might come to that yet. Mad couldn’t be trusted, ever.

“What was your suggestion?” Terry asked.

“Never you mind,” said Mad.

The telephone rang, and in the race to get to the cloakroom Joe beat Emma by a short head. Jack Trembath only kept him a moment. Emma, watching, saw Joe nod his head, answer, “Yes,” a couple of times and then replace the receiver, after which he turned to her, shrugging his shoulders, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Well?” she asked.

“Mr. Trembath didn’t say anything to me that made sense. It was just a message to Madam to say Operation Dung Cart full steam ahead, and any of us who wanted a joyride would be welcome. Zero hour as agreed.”

Emma left her grandmother to unravel the code concealed in Jack Trembath’s cryptic communication. Time enough to find out what it meant when zero hour struck. All she wanted to do at the moment was to go to her own room, get into bed, and with luck fall into a dreamless sleep. Pa had been wrong not to stay with them. Pa should have let monetary problems take care of themselves, or at least allowed someone else to fly across the Atlantic and handle financial crises for the country and the English-speaking peoples, instead of deserting his own family in their hour of need. The responsibility was too great for his daughter to cope with single-handed, and even Joe, steady-going, faithful Joe, seemed ready to be carried away by a newfound rebellious urge. If I can’t control her, she decided, before dropping exhausted into bed, and by her she meant her grandmother, then there will be nothing for it but to get hold of Bevil Summers and ask him to put her out with an injection. It was a shocking thought, but the image it conjured up of Mad sleeping peacefully for several hours with a faithful Dottie by her side guaranteed Emma’s own exit into the unconscious, and proved far more efficacious than the proverbial counting of sheep.

The hard weather, feared by Joe for his unheated greenhouse, did not materialize, and Wednesday dawned, like so many of its November predecessors, with a rise in temperature, a shift in wind, a mizzle of rain and fog on high ground. Fog on high ground always meant that Trevanal would be bathed in a white mist as permanent throughout the day as low cloud above an airport.

“Splendid,” said Terry after breakfast, with the younger boys dispatched once more to school. “Couldn’t be better for our exercise if it continues like this until this time tomorrow.” And he winked at Joe.

“Why?” asked Emma.

“Doesn’t concern you,” replied Terry. “Madam and Joe and I decided last night, after you’d gone up to bed, that we weren’t going to tell you anything.”

Emma felt anger rise. “That’s damned unfair! Mad’s my grandmother, not yours, and Pa put me in charge of her. Any crazy plan she may get into her head is my business far more than it is yours.”

“Listen, Em,” said Joe, “I wouldn’t let Madam do anything dangerous. You know that. Nor would Mr. Trembath. So stop being class-conscious.”

Emma stared at him, astounded. “Class-conscious?” she demanded. “What the hell do you mean?”

“What I say,” answered Joe. “You are her granddaughter, yes, and she is, or was, a famous person. We are no relation to you or to her, yet she’s all we’ve ever known, and if it comes to love I dare say we’d give our lives for her before you did. You think your special relationship makes you superior to Terry and me, and to the kids as well. It doesn’t.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Terry. “Long live the underdogs. I never knew you could be so eloquent, my old buddy. High time Emma knew her place.”

Emma, near to tears, went out of the room. Terry she could take, but not Joe. Class-conscious… God! what an insult. She had never thought of the boys in that light, never for one moment believed herself superior. Of course being Mad’s granddaughter gave her a special relationship, it was to be expected, it was natural, but that Joe should accuse her of having some sort of snobbish attitude towards him and Terry and the others—it was outrageous. It was Joe who was the snob, Joe who had an inferiority complex, all mixed up with not being able to read and write, and then a kind of hangover of jealousy because of that fool Wally Sherman, who, poor brute, was only trying to be friendly when he had come to the house to soften the uneasy truth of being an invader…

“What on earth’s the matter, darling?”

Emma had run full tilt into her grandmother after leaving the kitchen.

“It’s the boys,” she stormed. “They drive me wild at times. Just because I’m your relation and they are not, they accuse me of thinking myself superior, of being a snob, and it’s not true.”

Mad was trying on a variety of hats before going out to gather more fir cones with Ben. Discarding three in succession she finally ended up with a sou’wester worn back to front that turned her into a coolie.

“We’re all snobs,” she said calmly, “and we all like to think ourselves superior. If we didn’t we’d never have risen from the apes.” She called to her small companion, who was helping himself to mint humbugs from the dining room sideboard. “Ben and I are going to fill one sack, then I propose taking him down through the wood to call on Taffy. Like to come with us?”

The thought of Mr. Willis, alone in his lair, with the gelignite hidden somewhere under the floorboards and the sacks that had been wrapped round the body of Corporal Wagg still lying black and sodden on the ashes of the compost heap, was the final straw.

“No,” said Emma, “I wouldn’t. And to be perfectly frank I don’t think you ought to go. He knows too much. He could be dangerous.”

“That’s why I’m going to see him,” replied Mad. “The more he knows the more flattered he’ll be to be one of us. I know how to deal with Taffy.”