The following Monday afternoon we started lessons at the village school. It’d taken a bit of arranging because there was only one classroom, which we couldn’t all fit in, so the Budmouth Point kids were to have their lessons in the morning. You’d have thought they’d be thrilled to be knocking off school early. But, I was taken aback to find a group of them at the entrance when we arrived.
‘Sssh! They’re coming!’ someone said in a very loud whisper.
In that moment I wished with all my heart I was back in London going to St Thomas’s as usual, walking through the gates with Maggie and Susan. In Mum’s smart coat I felt suddenly self-conscious, unsure whether to stop or hurry past. Yet compared to the lighthouse ladder which we’d had to climb down to get here, for Cliff this was the easy part.
‘Hullo,’ he said to the local kids, squinting from under his school cap. ‘I’m Cliff.’
‘Are you any good at football?’ one of the younger boys asked.
‘I can play a bit,’ Cliff admitted.
Another boy, with a missing front tooth, said to me: ‘I’ve seen you before in the village. You’re the delivery girl, aren’t you?’
‘I was,’ I replied. ‘We’re living at the lighthouse now.’
‘Magic!’ He whistled. ‘What’s it like inside? Does he actually talk to you, Mr Pengilly? My mum says he’s always sad and never speaks to anyone.’
‘He’s all right.’ I think the boy wanted juicy details but I already felt rather loyal towards Ephraim, whose serious nature struck a chord with me. Anyway, the boy’s attention quickly moved on as more evacuees arrived at the gates.
‘Are you from London?’ a freckle-faced girl asked me.
I nodded. Smiled.
‘My dad says never mind the Germans, it’s them Londoners what’s invaded us,’ an older boy remarked.
I hoped he might be joking: he certainly had a big grin on his face. Then his mate joined in with ‘Send ’em all home. We don’t want ’em here.’
And I realised then it wasn’t a pleasant grin. Reaching for Cliff’s hand, I thought it best to move on into the playground where I could see Mr Barrowman talking to Miss Carter. Glancing behind, I saw the grinning boy’s new target was Esther Jenkins, who, like the rest of us, was wearing the uniform of her London school.
‘Been frightening the cows in that outfit, have you?’ the boy called out.
Esther stopped level with the Budmouth kids. ‘Which one of you said that?’
I couldn’t help but admire her courage. I’d not seen her since we’d left Queenie’s on Friday, and still felt I’d behaved rather shoddily, especially now I knew a bit more about her background. I’d decided to try harder at being friendly next time we met. Watching her now, though, she still seemed full of fight. I wasn’t confident my plan would work.
‘Are you talking to me?’ Esther asked, homing in on the boy with the grin. ‘We’re guests here, you know. Is this how you welcome us?’
Chin up, plaits tossed over her shoulders, she more than stood her ground. The boy, on the other hand, had gone decidedly blotchy.
‘That in’t a London accent,’ he laughed nervously. ‘You sound foreign, you do.’
I caught my breath. There was going to be trouble. I could see Esther’s fists clenching by her sides.
Thankfully, Mr Barrowman started ringing the school bell with a huge swing of his arm. Deafening though it was, the noise broke up the group.
We were ushered into a cloakroom to hang our coats and gas masks on hooks bearing other people’s names. It was odd being back in a classroom. The rows of desks were familiar enough, as were the books with crumbling spines stacked on the shelves at the back. The smell – chalk dust and floor polish – made me remember none too enthusiastically the equations and algebra that my old teacher Miss Higgins had tried to drum into me without much success.
Though there were only twenty-five of us in our class, we were all ages and sizes, wearing the uniforms of at least four different London schools. One of these was Mr Barrowman’s own school, I remembered from the train. He’d been evacuated here with his remaining students, and now faced the challenge of teaching us, though if he was nervous, he didn’t show it.
‘Robertson!’ he barked at an unsuspecting boy. ‘Tuck that shirt in. It’s not a petticoat!’
Miss Carter was more welcoming, remembering all our names as we shuffled through the classroom door.
‘Hullo, everyone, yes, that’s right, I’m here as an extra pair of hands,’ she said to us. ‘Come in, take a seat.’
As I went by she took me aside. ‘Queenie told me about you and Esther falling out. How about you make a fresh start today?’
‘Um …’ I bit my lip nervously. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Good girl.’ Miss Carter smiled. ‘Look, there’s a spare desk next to Esther. Why don’t you sit there?’
To be honest, I didn’t think Esther would want me sitting near her, and I’d have rather tried to make friends at my own speed. But I liked Miss Carter: she wore bright lipstick and the sort of trousers Sukie called ‘slacks’, and I knew she meant well.
‘Okay,’ I agreed.
Esther looked surprised when I sat down next to her, though I wasn’t sure how long I’d be there as Mr Barrowman was now busily rearranging everyone’s places.
‘Younger pupils sit here,’ he said, clicking his fingers at the front desks. ‘Older pupils take the outside seat in each row.’
I supposed it meant the bigger kids could help the younger ones. In the end neither Esther nor I had to move, since she was a year or so older than me.
‘Looks like I’ll be helping you, then,’ Esther said coolly. ‘Please tell me you’re not awful at maths.’
‘I’m not very good at it,’ I confessed.
She sat back in her seat with a sigh. ‘Typical.’
‘SILENCE!’ Mr Barrowman’s roar made me jump. ‘I don’t recall inviting this class to talk!’
A hush fell over the room. No one dared speak again, at least not until asked. For me, that dreadful prospect came all too quickly, when, after exercise books were handed out, Mr Barrowman announced we’d be writing in ink.
‘No chalk slates or pencils in my class. From now on, you’ll all be using dip pens and ink.’
Glancing round, Cliff caught my eye, and we shared an excited look. Writing in ink was what you did in your final year of school at St Thomas’s. I’d had a go for fun once and made a frightful mess, but when I’d got the hang of it my handwriting had looked awfully smart.
A boy called David from Mr Barrowman’s own school was told to hand out pens. Miss Carter passed around bits of blotting paper. Then Mr Barrowman’s stern gaze came to rest on me: ‘Olivia, you’ll be our class ink monitor for this term.’
I cringed. Everyone knew the job of ink monitor was as good as having ‘teacher’s pet’ stamped on your forehead.
‘It’s Olive, sir,’ I mumbled, knowing I’d gone red. ‘Do I have to? I’m not very good at pouring.’
He looked at me with such scorn I knew I had no choice. Reluctantly I went to the front to collect the ink can.
‘Fill every pupil’s inkwell,’ Mr Barrowman instructed, handing the can to me. ‘Quickly now.’
Each desk had a porcelain cup set in the top left-hand corner for ink. Those on the front row I filled easily enough. But the bigger kids didn’t move aside for me so I was stepping over outstretched feet and weaving around their chairs. Their pens, handed out efficiently by David, hovered impatiently over their open books.
‘Are we to wait FOR EVER for our ink?’ Mr Barrowman cried from the front. ‘Hurry UP, girl!’
Hot and bothered, I rushed to the back row. Esther tucked her feet in so I could get closer to her desk.
‘Thanks,’ I whispered gratefully.
Yet just as I leaned in to pour the ink, a noise from outside made me freeze.
The droning got louder. It was, unmistakably, the sound of aeroplanes – bombers, to be precise. Everyone was looking skywards now. When I saw Miss Carter take off her glasses and slip them in her trouser pocket, I felt a cold squirm of fear. No one with any sense kept their glasses on during an air raid. It was one thing the London bombings had taught us.
‘Do NOT panic,’ Mr Barrowman demanded, though when he looked out of the window, he breathed in sharply. ‘Heavens above! It’s the …’
The planes overhead drowned out the rest.
Despite the teacher’s orders, I did start to panic. Breathe, I told myself. It’s not like last time. You’re not alone or out in the street. You’re safe. My body remembered it, though. I began to shake, my heart racing so fast I thought I was going to faint.
Whump.
The explosion threw me against Esther’s desk. People fell from their chairs. Books tumbled off the shelves. I stayed on the floor, arms wrapped around my head. Beneath me the ground shuddered, and the windows made a popping, crunching sound as their glass cracked.
Silence followed. For a moment, no one moved as the shock sank in. Then, clambering over the upturned chairs, I rushed to Cliff.
‘Are you all right?’ I cried, brushing the dust from his face.
He nodded, smiling weakly. ‘That was terrific!’ As I helped him to his feet, I didn’t tell him he looked completely terrified.
Other people were standing up now, dusting down their clothes and checking themselves for cuts or bruises. My ears felt strange but nothing hurt. Beat by beat, my heart began to slow.
‘It was a stray bomb. Nothing to fuss about. It’s all over now,’ Mr Barrowman insisted, ordering us back to our seats. He resumed the lesson where he’d left off, telling us to copy the date into our books, yet when he addressed us there was definitely a tremble in his voice.
Picking up my pen, I realised I was the only one still without ink. I glanced round for my ink can. It was on the floor where I’d dropped it, ink splatted against the wall and up the legs of Esther’s desk. As I was working up the courage to tell Mr Barrowman, Esther suddenly cried out, ‘I’m bleeding!’
I dropped my pen in alarm. Her hands were covering her face. She was on her feet, staggering backwards so her chair tipped over. Miss Carter rushed over with a hankie.
It wasn’t blood: I could see the colour through her hands and it was blue, not red. The ink had got her too, a great wet splat of it right across her forehead.
It wasn’t long before the other kids cottoned on. Laughter rippled round the room. Esther, wiping her face in Miss Carter’s hankie, realised too. She looked very relieved, and managed a little half-smile. Then as her eye caught mine the smile vanished.
‘Not funny,’ she mouthed, as if I’d done it on purpose.
*
There was no back-to-normal after that, though Mr Barrowman tried. In the end we were all sent home again.
‘Esther, wait!’ I cried, as she rushed out of the door before I’d even got my coat on.
‘Let her cool down,’ Miss Carter advised. ‘You look a bit shaken up yourself, Olive. Go home and have a cup of tea.’
I hadn’t meant to spill the ink, it was an accident – anyone could see that. The trouble was, with Esther and me things were already spiky and complicated, and the ink spill had made things worse.
‘Wow, you look miserable,’ Cliff said helpfully as we left school. But that was all he said, guessing I didn’t want to talk. We walked out through the school gates in silence.
The stray bomb had come down just beyond the church. No houses had been struck, thankfully; it had landed in someone’s front garden. All that was left of it now was a gaping, smoking hole and the remains of a gate. Seeing it made me go panicky again, so we hurried past.
We didn’t get much further. Out on the main street, the crowd was so thick it was impossible to squeeze through. Someone had arrived in a motor vehicle, and was obviously so important people had come out of their houses to greet him.
‘Who’s he?’ Cliff asked, standing on tiptoes for a better look.
The man’s dark blue coat and peaked cap seemed to be a uniform of sorts.
‘Well, he’s not the Home Guard or the army,’ I deduced.
Then someone shouted, ‘The coastguard’s here!’ and, ‘Hurrah for Mr Spratt! He’ll sort Jerry out!’ until the man was almost swamped by pats on the back. Climbing the nearest front steps, which happened to be Queenie’s, he stood, feet apart, to address the crowd. Though not very tall he was broad in the body, which made him look rather square. He seemed to be enjoying all the attention too, puffing out his chest like he’d just won a medal.
‘Once again today we find ourselves in this unacceptable situation. Twice this last week German bombers have used Budmouth Point as a landmark to guide them to Plymouth,’ Mr Spratt announced.
Uneasy mutters rippled up and down the street. Cliff and me shared a look: by landmark the man meant the lighthouse, didn’t he?
‘Having made an urgent telephone call to the Ministry of Defence,’ he took a dramatic breath, ‘I won’t mince my words: we must erase the lighthouse.’
There was a pause as the news sank in. I didn’t understand what Mr Spratt meant. Wasn’t erasing what you did when you’d made a mistake writing in pencil?
The man called Jim, who last time’d been concerned for his cabbages, didn’t get it, either: ‘Eh? What d’you mean, erase?’
‘Wipe out, Jim,’ Mrs Henderson explained, for she was there too, immaculate in tweeds and pearls but looking agitated. ‘Get rid of. Remove.’
I stared at Mr Spratt in astonishment. Would he really destroy Ephraim and Pixie’s lovely home? Where would they live? Where would Cliff and I live?
Voices started all at once:
‘Course they can! You saw those planes!’
‘That lighthouse has been there longer than any of us.’
‘But if it stops Jerry in his tracks …’
Very quickly, my shock turned to confusion. How on earth did you remove a lighthouse?
The arguments went round and round. It was like string tying itself in bigger, more complicated knots. Bizarrely, the loudest protests of all came from Mrs Henderson, Miss Carter and Queenie, who’d pushed their way to the front of the crowd.
‘I want to know on whose authority you plan to do this,’ demanded Miss Carter. Though the coastguard was two steps up, she was tall enough to stare him in the eye.
‘It’s a perilously dangerous stretch of coast,’ Mrs Henderson added. ‘There are riptides and quicksands and—’
‘It in’t so bad. Ships have radio contact nowadays,’ a man in fisherman’s overalls interrupted.
‘Not all of them,’ Queenie replied. ‘Many smaller boats don’t even have motors.’
‘Huh, you’re an expert now, are you?’ the fisherman quipped.
Queenie ignored him. ‘Isn’t it true that the enemy won’t actually attack a lighthouse – all part of the rules of war or something?’
The fisherman laughed drily. ‘That’s just it, love. There in’t no rules any more.’
‘We still have our decency, surely,’ Mrs Henderson remarked.
‘Decency won’t keep out the Germans, Mrs H.’ The man narrowed his eyes at Queenie. ‘Unless you don’t want to keep them out, that is.’
As mutterings travelled through the crowd, you could sense the mood turning sour. The same had happened earlier outside the school gates, that feeling of distrust. Of people sizing each other up. I didn’t like it. Wanting to go, I looked around for a quick way out of the crowd; there wasn’t one.
Then Jim the cabbage man said, ‘Who in God’s name is going to tell Ephraim?’
And everyone started talking again.
‘He won’t take kindly to it …’
‘Never known him live anywhere else, not since his family died …’
‘That was a terrible winter, that was. The churchyard was full to bursting.’
‘The lighthouse is his family these days …’
It made me realise how little I knew of Ephraim. Though I didn’t know how or when his family had died, I understood what it felt like to lose someone. Yet to lose all your family at once must be terrible, and sadness welled up in my throat. He had no one left; we had our mum, and even then it still hurt, knowing Dad would never be back. No wonder poor Ephraim never smiled.
Mr Spratt clapped his hands for quiet. ‘I’ll be visiting Mr Pengilly directly to inform him of my plans.’
‘Good luck – you’ll need it,’ said Jim, shaking his head.
The crowd dispersed soon after that. Glad to be going home, we walked down the hill, falling back into an even gloomier silence.
Home.
I’d already started thinking of the lighthouse in that way. Poor Ephraim; it’d be a hundred times worse for him and Pixie. Nor could I believe Mr Spratt could just get rid of a lighthouse or indeed how he’d do it.
Yet who’d have thought they’d evacuate all the zoo animals out of London or the famous paintings from the National Gallery? And what about us school children, sent from our families to the middle of nowhere? If you had a family: from what Queenie’d said, Esther didn’t even have that.
All sorts were happening because of this war, not to mention missing sisters and codes I couldn’t break. There was so much I still didn’t understand. Maybe it was possible to remove a lighthouse, though I still wasn’t sure how.