Tuppence To Spend (49 page)

‘The
police
!’ Ruth echoed, horrified.

‘Well, he’s missing, isn’t he? The police will have to be told. Not that it’s our business, not strictly,’ he added heavily. ‘It’s Dan Hodges ought to be doing any reporting there is to be done. I don’t know that we’ve got any right to do anything at all.’

‘But he was my evacuee!’ Ruth cried. ‘I’m his foster-mother.’

‘Yes, but he wasn’t with you when he went missing,’ George pointed out. ‘He was in his dad’s care then.’

‘His dad was at
work
! He was gone for four days – you can’t call that
care
.’

‘To all intents and purposes,’ George said firmly, ‘Sammy was in his care. It’s his responsibility what’s happened to the boy. But that don’t mean we can just stand by,’ he added more gently. ‘I don’t mean that, Ruth. I just say we can’t go to the authorities.’

‘We can go and see Mr Beckett,’ Jane said. ‘Like you said, we can talk to him. He’ll know what to do.’ She went to the back door and took down her coat. ‘Come on, George.’

‘What – now? It’s getting on for ten o’clock.’

‘Well, of course. You don’t expect us to wait till tomorrow, do you? And you’ll be milking in the morning, you won’t have time then. No, we must go now, before it gets any later. Mr Beckett won’t mind. He’s probably expecting us.’ She had her own coat on by now and held out George’s. ‘Come on, George.’

Ruth stood up and waited miserably while they got ready. She looked at the table and bit her lip. The tears had begun to creep down her face again.

‘I just can’t bear to think of him,’ she said shakily. ‘Out there somewhere, in the cold and the dark, all by himself. Oh Jane, where is he? What’s happened to him?’

Jane took her arm and drew her gently towards the door. ‘We’ll find him, Ruth. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s all right, wherever he is. We’ll find him for you.’

As Jane had said, Mr Beckett wasn’t at all surprised to find them on his doorstep ten minutes later. He held the door open and ushered them into the kitchen, where Mrs Mudge was sitting in a wooden rocking chair by the Aga, knitting.
There were two mugs of cocoa on the scrubbed wooden table and an open book beside the other armchair. On the dresser there was a pile of comics, and children’s drawings were pinned round the walls.

‘Come in, come in. Take off your coats.’ He pulled out chairs around the table and they unwound their scarves and sat down, perching on the edges of the chairs. ‘No, Mrs Purslow, you have my chair here by the stove … This is a sad situation. It seems as if the little boy could have been missing for some days.’

‘Have Tim and Keith said any more?’ Ruth asked anxiously. ‘Have they got any idea where he might have gone?’

The vicar shook his head. He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and leant his long thin arms on the table. His mild blue eyes reflected Ruth’s anxiety.

‘I’m afraid not. I asked them of course, and the girls too, but none of them had any idea. Keith was of the opinion that he might have run away to sea, but I think we can discount that …’ He smiled very slightly. ‘I think myself that he must have been trying to come back here. Where else would he go? This was home to him.’ He turned his glance on Ruth. ‘I’m sure he knew he would be welcome.’

‘Of course he would!’ she cried. ‘Why, he was like a son to me! I
wanted
him to come back – I thought it was understood he
would
come back. I don’t see why he had to run away at all, not unless his father was cruel to him. And – and –’ she hesitated, biting her lip, then went on quickly ‘– I don’t believe he is a cruel man – not really. He’s had a hard life and he doesn’t know how to look after a boy, but he’s not cruel.’

‘Not cruel!’ Jane exclaimed. ‘Going off and leaving a little boy like that for four whole days! If that’s not cruel I don’t know what is!’

‘Well, be that as it may,’ Mr Beckett said, ‘the important thing now is to decide what we must do to find him. The
police will have to be notified, of course –’ Jane gave her husband a swift glance ‘– but to tell you the truth, I think that’s really Mr Hodges’ responsibility. However, we can perhaps go to the railway station and see if the guards know anything, if we can find those who were on any trains he might have used.’ He rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Of course, we don’t actually know which day it was. But he surely can’t have been wandering about all this time—’

A loud hammering on the door interrupted him. The women gasped and Ruth put her hand to her mouth. George gave them a quick look and got to his feet. ‘I’ll answer it if you like, Vicar. It might be the police already.’

Ruth had both hands at her mouth now, the palms together as if she were praying. ‘If anything’s happened to that little boy …’

Jane got up too and went to stand beside her sister, her hand squeezing Ruth’s shoulder. Mrs Mudge’s knitting had fallen to her lap and her fingers were twisted together. Mr Beckett untangled his long body and followed George to the door.

‘Don’t let any light show—’ he began, but George was already stepping back as the new arrival pushed his way inside and stood blinking for a moment or two in the light, staring around at them.

It was Dan Hodges.

‘I’ve been down to your cottage,’ he said to Ruth, who was staring at him in disbelief. ‘You weren’t there so I come on up here. I come all the way on me bike, in the pitch dark. I couldn’t wait about till tomorrow.’ He turned his eyes, red-rimmed from the cold, from one person to the other and, as if his legs would support him no longer, sank on to one of the kitchen chairs. His face was grey with exhaustion, all the truculence wiped away, leaving only the drawn lines of fear. ‘Where’s my Sammy, eh? Where’s my boy?’

There was a long silence as they all gazed at one another.
Then Ruth got up. She went to the bowed figure at the table and laid her hand on his shoulder. Her expression, though none of the anxiety had diminished, had softened.

‘We don’t know, Dan,’ she said quietly. ‘We don’t know. But we’re going to find him. Now that we know he’s missing, we’re all going to do our best to find him.’

Dan had been to the police station as soon as it was realised that Sammy was missing and they had promised to start asking questions around the neighbourhood first thing in the morning. There wasn’t really anything else they could do, the station sergeant told him, not at the moment. They had to find out when he was last seen – who had seen him – if he’d actually got on a train or a bus, or was just wandering around Portsmouth still. They couldn’t begin to do that in the middle of the night.

He’d had a few questions of his own to ask Dan, too. How was it the nipper had been left alone in the house for four whole days? Didn’t Dan realise when he went off on Saturday that this might happen? And if he had, why hadn’t he asked a neighbour to look after the boy? Why, most of all, hadn’t he let him go back to Bridge End like the other kiddies?

When Dan had finally left the station he felt as if he’d been put through a mangle. I know I didn’t oughter’ve left him like that, he thought, but I just couldn’t face letting him go off again. I couldn’t face the place being empty every night when I come back from work. And I was frightened I’d lose him for good. He liked it too much out at Bridge End. He was getting too fond of that Ruth Purslow and she was getting too fond of him. That was what it was.

He’d cycled home through the darkness, but when he got there he couldn’t settle. The house was too bleak, too unwelcoming. I don’t blame the kid not wanting to stay, he
thought, looking around. It’s no home at all, not like he had out there. He
was
better off at Bridge End. He’s fallen on his feet there. Ruth Purslow was a nice woman, a good woman, and Dan could have trusted her to look after his boy properly. He
should
have trusted her.

Ruth Purslow would make a good mother for any boy. She’d make a good wife too. If things could just have been different …

He had started to take his coat off as he came in. Now, unable to rest, he shrugged it back on again. The evening seemed to have been going on for ever, but it was still only eight o’clock. If he got on his bike now, he could get out to Bridge End before ten, even in the dark.

Bridge End was where Sammy was heading and that was where Dan was going to be.

Catching the train to Bridge End was, Sammy had found, not quite as easy as he’d supposed.

He was too late to catch up with Frank Budd and the other children as they made their way to Hilsea halt, but the man in the little hut told him there would be another train along soon and he bought his ticket. It left him with some money to spare and he jingled the coins in his pocket, feeling suddenly rich. ‘I’ve got sixpence, jolly little sixpence …’

Of course, it was Dad’s money really, but it had been meant to last Sammy till Tuesday, so it wasn’t really stealing. Although he supposed that once he was back at Bridge End he’d have to send it back, or keep it till the next time he saw his father. Dad wouldn’t let him keep it. He couldn’t afford to give Sammy three shillings, just like that.

He was feeling cold by the time the train steamed along from the town station, and scrambled aboard, glad to be out of the wind. The sky was lowering, with yellowish-grey clouds pressing down on top of Portsdown Hill. He found a seat and sat down, squashed up between two soldiers.

The train was a slow one. It chuffed along, breathing heavily as if it were really too tired to make the journey and stopping at every opportunity, even between stations. Sammy stared out of the window. Apart from the journey home in the dark on Christmas Eve, he had only been on a train once in his life, when he was first evacuated, and he had no idea what he should be seeing. They’d go along the top of the harbour, he thought, so there ought to be sea and boats … When he saw these he relaxed, and settled back to enjoy the journey and the feeling that he was grown-up enough to make it all on his own.

The soldiers started to light cigarettes and the compartment was soon filled with thick smoke. Sammy felt his eyes begin to smart. He closed them and listened to the rhythmic clackety-clack of the pistons as they drove the engine along, and the answering rattle of the wheels on the track.
Do-do-dee-do, do-do-dee-do, do-do-dee-do, do-do-dee-do
… The sound set up an answering rhythm in his brain, a rhythm that, together with the stuffy atmosphere in the smoke-filled compartment, lulled him first into a doze and then into a heavy sleep.

He woke with a start to find the soldiers all standing up, getting their kitbags off the racks overhead and pushing their way out through the narrow door into the corridor.

Sammy struggled to wake. ‘Are we here? Are we at Bridge End?’

The nearest man turned and glanced down at him. ‘Bridge End? Never heard of it, son. This is Brighton.’

‘Brighton?’ Sammy stared out of the window. He’d heard of Brighton – Tim Budd had told him they’d been there once – but surely it was further from Portsmouth than Bridge End. Had he gone past the stop?

‘What am I going to do? I wanted to go to Bridge End.’

The soldier was halfway out of the compartment. He paused, his kitbag wedging in the doorway, and looked
back. ‘You’d better get off, kid. Ask the stationmaster. He’ll put you right.’

He went on quickly to join his mates and Sammy stared after him. Then he heard the whistle blow and, panicstricken, snatched up his own bags and scurried after the soldiers, tumbling out on to the platform just as a porter was coming along to slam the door shut.

‘Here, what are you up to? You could get killed, playing the fool like that.’ He stared at Sammy with suspicion. ‘You ain’t travelling without a ticket, I hope?’

‘No! I’ve got a ticket – I bought it at Hilsea.’ Sammy scrabbled in his pocket to find the scrap of cardboard and handed it over. ‘Only I think I’ve gone too far. I wanted to go to Bridge End.’

‘Bridge End? Where’s that when it’s at home?’

Sammy stared at him. ‘It’s a station. It’s where I’m evacuated.’

‘Well, it ain’t on this line,’ the porter said. ‘You’d better come along with me.’

He put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder and marched him along the platform. Sammy scuttled along beside him, his heart thumping with fear. What was the man going to do with him? Would he take him to the stationmaster? To the police? He was sure it must be a crime to go too far for a ticket. Would they take him to prison, or to the proved school, like Gordon? Would they tell his dad, or Auntie Ruth, what had happened?

The porter led him through a green door and into a small office, with a cluttered desk and two telephones. Behind the desk there was a man in railway uniform, with a large white moustache. A fire burned bright and warm in the fireplace and Sammy realised just how cold he was.

The stationmaster picked up a cap that was lying on his desk and fitted it on to his head. There was a smart badge on the front and, with his bristling moustache, it made him look very important. Sammy gazed up at him, quaking.

‘Hallo, Jenkins.’ The stationmaster’s voice was stern. ‘What have you got there? Travelling without a ticket, was he?’

‘No, sir, he’s got a ticket, but it’s not for Brighton. It’s not for anywhere on this line that I can see.’ The porter held it out. ‘It’s for a place called Bridge End.’

‘Bridge End, eh?’ The older man took the ticket and stared critically at it. ‘Hm. It’s today’s ticket all right.’ He fixed Sammy with a piercing look. ‘If you were supposed to be going to Bridge End, what were you doing on the Brighton train?’

‘Please, sir, I didn’t know it was the Brighton train. I don’t know where Brighton is.’

He heard the porter draw in his breath. ‘Don’t know where
Brighton
is? Blimey, what do they teach ’em at school these days?’

‘Not much, I should think.’ The stationmaster sighed and looked at Sammy again. His voice had lost a little of its sternness. ‘Do you know where Bridge End is?’

‘It’s where I’m evacuated,’ Sammy said again.

‘Well, do you know where it’s near? Any big towns or cities?’

Sammy thought for a minute. ‘Yes. It’s near Southampton. We went there once and Lizzie said she’d take me to see the docks where the liners used to go.’