Ephraim disappeared down the ladder, the wind making his oilskins flap like a ship’s sails. I was tempted to give him a head start, then follow anyway – and he guessed as much.
‘You stay here,’ he instructed me. ‘I’ll be back with any news as soon as I can.’
I shut the front door miserably. Waiting was going to be torture: I was already imagining the worst and the best in one chaotic thought. It didn’t help that the lighthouse had started swaying slightly, which Ephraim said happened when the wind was particularly strong.
Clutching the handrail, I climbed the stairs to check on Cliff. Part of me was bursting to tell him that I’d cracked the code, but the rest of what we’d worked out wasn’t exactly joyful, so I didn’t think it fair to worry him. He was asleep, anyway, the blankets kicked off, the sheets twisted around his legs. I tucked him in again, then went back up to the sitting room to wait.
An hour passed and Ephraim didn’t return. The storm had gathered strength, hurling sleet against the windows with such force I thought they’d break. It was a bit like being inside my own head, everything noisy and rattling about.
It got harder to keep the stove alight as the wind blustered down the chimney, and I had to wrap myself in a blanket to stay warm. For supper I made a cheese sandwich, which I shared with Pixie.
Another hour passed. Then another.
I walked circuits of the room, looking out of each window in the hope of seeing Ephraim’s torch beam bobbing through the harbour as he came back with news. But all I saw was water streaming down the glass and blackness beyond. It was hard to stay hopeful, seeing that.
By the time the clock struck midnight, I couldn’t bear it any more. I convinced myself the reason Ephraim hadn’t returned was because he couldn’t face telling me: the mission was off. They’d decided it was too dangerous to rescue anyone from northern France. It didn’t take much effort to picture Sukie at gunpoint or being dragged by the Gestapo to some rat-infested prison.
Tightening the blanket around my shoulders, I couldn’t get warm. If Dad were here now he’d talk to me, listen to me, make me see things in a different way.
‘Dad,’ I whispered out loud. ‘Please make sure Sukie comes home. Seeing as you didn’t, it’s only fair that she does, don’t you think? I don’t mean to bargain, but—’
‘Who are you talking to, Olive?’ Cliff squinted sleepily at me from the top of the stairs.
I got up, shaking off the blanket and wrapping him in it. He was definitely ill because he didn’t fidget or tell me not to fuss. Glad of the company, I made him have the chair while I perched on its arm. ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ I said.
There was an oil lamp burning brightly on a little table beside the chair. Taking Sukie’s note from my pocket, I was about to explain to Cliff how the code worked, thinking he’d like to know. Yet as I held the paper up with the light behind it, something I’d not noticed before caught my eye. Very, very faintly you could see another mark on the paper. It wasn’t much. But once you looked carefully in the right sort of light, it didn’t say Day 9 at all but Day 19. Not an opposite at all.
‘Cliff,’ I said slowly. ‘When would Day 19 be?’
‘Day 19?’ He scowled. ‘What you on about? It says Day 9.’
I pointed to the ink stain on the paper. It’d been made by water – the burst water mains from the air raid. It was easy to see how I’d missed it before, reading it by weak torchlight or under bedclothes. And it was pretty simple to work out, even for a maths dunderhead like me, that nineteen days had passed since the air raid.
I caught Cliff’s eye. He grinned. Suddenly I was grinning too.
Day 19 was today. Tonight.
The boat wasn’t stuck in France, or even delayed. It was on its way at this very moment. Everything was going to plan.
I jumped up, hands cupping my own face in excitement. ‘Right! Action stations, Cliff! What do we need to do first?’
Cliff passed me the binoculars he’d brought upstairs. ‘Have a look through these. There’s a flashing light out to sea.’
I grabbed them. ‘Where? Which window?’
Cliff pointed to the one on the left. I raced over, resting my elbows on the sill to steady them. Pressed the binoculars to my eyes.
Then. Just to the left. A bright light flashing on and off. It was there, then gone again. There, then gone. But it was most definitely a light.
This was a quiet stretch of sea, I reminded myself, my heart beating very fast. The fishing boats were still moored in the harbour: they didn’t go out in a storm.
I handed the binoculars back to Cliff. ‘It’s got to be the boat from France, hasn’t it?’
‘I reckon so. Where’s Ephraim? We need to tell him.’
‘At Queenie’s.’ I fetched my coat, buttoning it up all wrong in the rush. ‘You’ll be okay here if I go?’
‘Course.’ He was already kneeling importantly in the chair nearest the window. ‘I’ll keep lookout.’
*
The wind was so strong it blew me like a leaf up the hill to Queenie’s. No one heard me knocking on the front door so I tried the little window to the left of the steps, just like I’d done on our first night here.
‘Oh come on, come on!’ I muttered, hugging myself against the icy, sideways rain. I was impatient to be back on the beach. You could hear the sea roar, the waves thump as they hit the harbour wall. It was going to be a heck of a job landing the boat safely, and without drawing attention to ourselves. I wasn’t sure how far off the coast it was, but every minute standing here we were wasting time.
I was just about to give up and try Mrs Henderson’s instead when I remembered the back door. You reached it by an alley at the side of the house, and it opened on to the kitchen, where Queenie and Ephraim might well be. It had to be worth a try.
In the day the door was always open. At night, Queenie bolted it on the inside. So again, I had to knock. This time I heard the noise of a chair scraping the floor. At last someone was coming. The door, though, stayed shut.
‘Who’s there?’ It was Esther, sounding frightened. ‘What do you want?’
I was a bit taken aback. ‘It’s Olive. Look, is Queenie there? Or Ephraim? It’s important.’
There was a grinding, snapping sound as the bolt drew back. Esther opened the door. She was wearing her nightdress with a sweater over the top. Behind her, I glimpsed a chair full of blankets pulled up close to the kitchen fire.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she mumbled. ‘And no, no one’s here.’
‘D’you know where they are? I need to find them, Esther. There’s a boat coming in!’
That got her attention. ‘A what?’
I glanced out into the street, anxious to be gone. ‘A boat. There’s people aboard. It’s just offshore and we have to bring it in before it ends up in the quicksands.’
‘I’ll get my things.’
She came back moments later, coat and boots on.
‘Right. Now we need to find the others. Tell them what’s happening,’ I said to her.
Esther looked me in the eye, boldly, directly, like someone I’d want on my side.
‘I don’t know where they are,’ she answered. ‘But Olive, we can do this. Let’s bring the boat in by ourselves.’
*
Down on the beach, there was no sign of Queenie or the others. All I could see were the white tops of the waves as they crashed on to the shingle.
‘What shall we do first?’ Esther shouted above the wind.
‘Flash your torch out to sea,’ I yelled back because it seemed like a sensible idea.
Out there somewhere in the storm was Sukie. She might even be able to see us, or hear us. Though I was freezing and frightened, the thought kept me going.
It was Esther who spotted it first. ‘Light! Over to the left! Coming in fast!’
My heart leaped to my throat. There was the sound of scrabbling on the shingle as Esther rushed to the water’s edge. In my torch beam, I glimpsed her knee-deep in the shallows.
‘Can’t see anything more!’ she called. ‘Whatever it was has gone!’
‘False alarm.’ I breathed out. Almost.
‘Light!’ Esther screamed again. ‘LIGHT! I said LIGHT!’
Sure enough, there in the blackness was a light. It was bobbing about wildly. Dropping. Rising. Dropping again. The sea was so huge we kept losing sight of it.
‘They’re coming in!’ I yelled, straining on tiptoe. ‘Over to the right – look!’
The light vanished again.
‘They’re heading for the rocks!’ Esther cried.
‘That’s not rocks, that’s the quicksands.’
She didn’t hear me. She set off half running, half scrambling along the beach, heading straight towards the groyne.
I tried to shout: ‘Wait! Don’t go any further!’ but the wind snatched my words away.
Wavering up ahead, I spotted the beam from Esther’s torch. Thankfully, she wasn’t that far away, though trying to run after her over the shingle was like wading through snowdrifts. Too quickly I grew exhausted. On my right was the sea, which helped orientate me. All the time the boat was coming closer. It was level with me now, and moving diagonally towards the shore.
‘Esther, stop!’ I yelled at the very top of my lungs. ‘STOP!’
Her torch beam picked out the slimy black wood of the groyne. Just as she reached it, she slowed, looking over her shoulder to locate the boat; she was a little way ahead of it still. A blast of wind sent me stumbling forwards. In a few strides, I was able, at last, to reach her. I threw my arms round her waist and hung on tight.
‘Don’t go any further. It’s quicksand!’ I gasped.
Esther fell back against me. We both staggered, quickly finding our balance again. The very next wave brought the boat in close enough to hear the slap of something thrown into the water.
‘Catch the rope!’ Esther cried.
I got there first. Esther was right behind me. Between us we grabbed the rope and, hand over hand, started heaving. Torches flashed. I heard shouting. The roar of waves. The boat was suddenly alarmingly near, a dark shape rising out of the water.
We still had the rope, but it was slipping all too easily from our hands. Gritting my teeth, I wrapped it round my wrist. I tried not to think of the pain.
‘Hold on!’ Esther yelled behind me. ‘Don’t let go!’
I turned to reply when a wave knocked me off my feet. My mouth, my head, was full of water, so freezing cold it burned. My hands grabbed at nothing.
‘The rope!’ Esther screamed, beside me now. ‘Where is it?’
We were all legs and feet as we thrashed about in the surf. Then my arm jerked so hard I thought it’d be torn off. Still wrapped around my wrist was the end of the rope. With my free hand, I grabbed Esther to anchor me. And there – still there, bucking and dipping in the swell – I caught sight of lights again.
Esther, in front of me now, got both hands on the rope. I couldn’t feel my fingers any more or my face. The water swirled around us, tugging at our legs, making it hard to stand upright. Harder still to pull against the waves. Alone, I’d never have managed. But somehow, between us, we dug our feet into the shingle and leaned back.
For ages it felt like we were pulling in vain. And then suddenly the boat was coming in way too fast.
As another massive wave shunted it on to the beach, we threw ourselves clear just in time. The bottom of the boat ground against the shingle. Someone shouted. In torch beams, I glimpsed the red painted side of a boat, what looked like an oar, a pair of legs dangling over the side.
Very quickly, people started dropping into the water. I heard voices in a language I didn’t recognise; Esther did, though, and called out: ‘Shalom! Shalom!’
In moments, we were standing thigh-deep in water, arms raised, taking suitcases, grandmothers, boxes, whatever came out of the boat. There were people everywhere, some laughing in relief, some crying, some hardly able to stand.
An old man with a violin case simply sat on the beach and sobbed.
I don’t know why, but I’d not expected children. There were a couple of boys Cliff’s age, dazed with shock. A little girl I lifted off the boat who clung to her toy dog, a family all together who kept hugging each other and counting heads just to double-check they’d all made it. None of it seemed quite real.
Heaps of wet belongings now littered the beach. People stood in huddles, shivering, unsure what to do next. As the last of the passengers clambered off the boat, I was aware I’d not yet spotted Sukie. There were quite a few young women in the crowd, but none was her.
‘Hang on, Olive,’ Esther said, as I unwound the rope from my wrist. ‘There’s a couple more still on board.’
The last passengers were a woman and a man. The woman was crying; it was clear she didn’t want to get off the boat. She held a white bundle in her arms. The man was trying to take the bundle from her, persuading her to climb down. All the while, the boat was rocking dangerously in the surf.
As I gripped the rope again, Esther did the same. The water, now churning around the boat, was trying to drag it back out to sea. The man sensed it. Swinging himself over the side, he grabbed the woman. Somehow the pair tumbled down on to the beach.
The waves were coming in faster. The rope was taut again, pulling against us. My arms felt ready to drop off.
‘What do we do now?’ I yelled to Esther. ‘I can’t hold on much longer.’
‘Can you just—’
All I could hear was water as the sea crashed over us. Coming up for air, I heard screaming. Not Esther but the woman with the white bundle, only she wasn’t holding it any more. She was back in the water, desperately clawing at the side of the boat. I couldn’t understand what she wanted.
‘What’s she saying?’ I yelled to Esther. ‘What’s wrong?’ But I saw the look of horror on Esther’s face. Coming from inside the boat was a high-pitched wailing sound.
A baby.
In a blur of panic, I pulled as if Cliff’s life depended on it. Other hands grabbed the rope, voices shouting. People rushed into the water, throwing themselves against the boat to stop it moving. Yet the sea kept coming, swirling and tugging, fighting to win.
I don’t know how long we stood there. Time seemed to stop. The shouting became yells, then, eventually, a cheer. Inch by inch, the boat came in until it hit the beach and we couldn’t move it any more. Feeling the rope slacken, I let go at last. We weren’t in water any longer. Somehow, together, we’d shifted the boat so it now sat surprisingly high up the beach.
My backside hit the ground with a thud. Esther dropped down beside me, breathing like she’d run for miles. I was aware of people standing over us, asking if we were all right. And somewhere nearby, a baby still crying, but in a gentler way, and a woman’s voice saying, ‘Sssshhhh, Reuben, shhhh,’ over and over.
I couldn’t speak. I lay flat on my back, wondering if I was going to be sick. My hands felt like they were on fire, yet my feet had never been so cold.
The first voice I recognised was Queenie’s. I couldn’t make out where she was. Then she crouched down beside me and helped me sit up.
‘You’re here!’ I nearly burst out crying. ‘I came to fetch you. Where were you all?’
‘At Mrs Henderson’s, using her radio. Mine’s extremely temperamental in bad weather.’
I tried to explain. ‘The code was wrong. I mean … we weren’t reading it properly—’
Queenie squeezed my shoulder. ‘You’ve done a remarkable thing here tonight, Olive. Not only did you discover something the rest of us missed. You brought the boat in by yourself.’
‘Not quite,’ I replied. ‘Esther and me did it together.’
In the beam of Queenie’s torch, I caught Esther’s eye. She almost smiled. Then, of a sudden, a look of disbelief crossed her face.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
She didn’t answer. Getting very slowly to her feet, she looked dazed. Wondering if somehow she’d bumped her head, I stood up to take hold of her by the elbow. Like me she was shivering from head to toe.
‘Let’s go back to mine and get warm, shall we?’ Queenie said, trying to move us on up the beach.
But Esther was staring – sleepwalker-staring – at a group of people not far from us. One of them, a man in a long dark coat, called out, ‘Esther?’
She listened. Didn’t move.
The man was coming towards her now in big, raking strides. Still she didn’t move. Yet I could almost feel the air around her change. She took a step towards the man.
Then she was running. Shouting, ‘Papa!’ against the wind.
‘Esti!’ the man cried. ‘Look at you! My child!’
‘That’s her father?’ My mouth fell open.
‘We didn’t want to get her hopes up, just in case it didn’t come off,’ Queenie explained. ‘That was why she couldn’t live with Ephraim. It’s much easier to keep it secret in a big house with a cellar.’
I was only half listening, unable to take my eyes off Esther and her father. I let myself – just for a moment – imagine it was my dad who’d miraculously turned up. My dad hugging me. I could feel Esther’s joy like it was real. And actually, it was. Knowing what it was like to lose my dad, I was just so thankful she’d been reunited with hers.