Gordon Price slept better on Saturday than he had on Friday. He’d gone to bed as soon as he came off his night duty and managed to stay asleep until nearly two o’clock. That was the only advantage of working nights, he reckoned – it meant he got his evenings at home, and a good part of the afternoons. All he needed was a little nap for about half an hour before he went back on duty, and that kept him going through the night. When he first started doing nights he’d worried about nodding off, especially after a War Reserve Constable in another division of the Metropolitan Police was found asleep on duty at five o’clock in the morning and forced to resign. That was a few months ago, of course, before the air raids started, when the nights could be a bit quieter. Not much chance of dropping off these days – the bombs, fire engine bells and anti-aircraft guns saw to that. Still, he didn’t want to take any chances.
Mavis looked up from her knitting when he came into the kitchen.
“Hello, love,” she said. “Had a good sleep? I’m just finishing off that little pullover I was doing for Tom. Shame I couldn’t get it done before he and Gracie went off – they grow so fast I can’t keep up. I suppose I’ll have to post it to Canada now. Goodness knows how much that’ll cost and how long it’ll take to get there. He’ll probably be too big for it by the time he gets it.”
“He’ll be pleased to know his mum’s thinking of him, though,” said Gordon, sitting down beside her.
“Shall I fetch you something to eat, dear?”
“No, not just yet, thanks.”
“That’s all right. All this night work must play havoc with your system. I mean, you’re home from work but it’s not tea time, you’ve just got out of bed but it’s not breakfast time, and it’s dinner time now but you’re not ready for it yet. Not to worry, though: it’s in the oven. It’ll keep.”
“Thanks, love. How was the wireless last night? Did it work all right?”
“Oh, yes. Thanks for fixing it. I listened to Ambrose, like I said, and Evelyn Dall – they said she was a croonette. Have you ever heard such a ridiculous word? Maybe it’s supposed to mean she’s a brunette who croons, but you can’t tell what colour her hair is on the radio, can you? Anyway, she’s got a lovely voice.”
“She’s a blonde, actually,” said Gordon.
“Ah, so you’ve been looking at pictures of her, have you?”
“No, not particularly. I just picked it up somewhere. Same as I picked up the fact that she earns fifty pounds a week while I’m out there risking my life six or seven nights a week for three – as you reminded me yesterday.”
Mavis put her knitting down into her lap.
“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to imply… Look, I’m sorry I got all aerated yesterday, too, about the government and everything. I know you were preoccupied – you were worried about Gracie and Tom. I was probably on edge too, thinking about them, but I was trying to stop you feeling so anxious.”
“I know, love. Thanks. I was worried about that woman, too – the dead one we found. I’m going to have to go and see DI Jago about it; there’s no two ways about it. I’ll go on Monday and be done with it.”
He got up and paced the floor to one end of the room and back.
“I need to get out,” he said. “Get some fresh air and clear my head.”
He took a step towards the passage, but as he did so there was a loud knocking at the front door.
He stopped, then strode briskly down the passage and opened the door. A man he didn’t recognize was standing on the pavement, facing him. The caller looked odd, at least in the sense that he wasn’t the kind of man Gordon would expect to see in Liverpool Road on a Saturday afternoon. It was his clothes – bowler hat, wing collar and black coat. He held a leather attaché case with both hands in front of him. He looked official, and he looked uneasy.
“Mr Price?” asked the stranger.
“Yes,” said Gordon.
“My name is Jackson and I work for the borough council. May I come in?”
“Yes, of course,” said Gordon. He led the man down the passage and into the kitchen. “Mavis, we’ve got a visitor.”
Mavis stowed her knitting beneath the chair and moved quickly to the table to remove a pile of ironing, then pulled out a chair for the man to sit on.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “We were just, er…”
She glanced at Gordon. He could see distress in her eyes.
“Good afternoon,” said the man. “Mrs Price?”
“Yes,” replied Mavis.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr and Mrs Price. I’m a welfare officer with the council, and I’ve been asked to visit you by the local education authority –”
Gordon interrupted him.
“If it’s about Tom and Gracie not being at school, it’s because they’ve been evacuated. They’ve gone to Canada with the Children’s Overseas Reception Board. It’s all been done properly, so the council should already know.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jackson, “that’s not what it’s about. Do sit down, please, and you too, Mrs Price.”
Gordon sat down. Mavis sat close beside him, clutching his hand with hers.
“I’m afraid I have some bad –”
Mavis gave a low gasp, her voice little more than a breath.
“No!”
“Some bad news,” said Jackson. “The very worst news, and there’s no easy way I can say this, but I must. It’s been confirmed that the City of Benares, the ship on which your children were travelling to Canada, was torpedoed and sunk by a U-boat last Tuesday night when it was still about six hundred miles from land. There were a hundred and two children on board, of whom eighty-nine were lost. I’m very sorry to have to tell you your children were not among the survivors.”
Mavis stared at him, her face at first numb and uncomprehending, then slowly breaking into a contortion of grief. Tears welled from her eyes, and a hushed wail seemed to rise from somewhere deep within her, growing steadily louder. She twisted round on her chair and threw herself onto Gordon’s chest, her arms clinging to him. He could feel deep sobs racking her body. He felt numb too. He didn’t know what to do.
Jackson shifted awkwardly in his chair, glancing around as if in search of more words to say.
“The authorities wanted to inform all the parents as soon as possible,” he said, “and so they arranged for people like myself to bring the news in person. Letters would be too slow, and it was judged that receipt of a telegram would be too shocking. I’m afraid the details are likely to be in the newspapers by Monday morning, so we acted as quickly as possible to notify you. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s all right,” said Gordon quietly. “You’re only doing your job. It’s not your fault.” He stroked his wife’s hair absently as she wept in his arms. “Are you sure this is right? There hasn’t been some mistake? There are mistakes sometimes, aren’t there?”
Jackson shook his head.
“I’m sorry: only thirteen of the children survived, and they’ve all been identified. Your children are not among them.”
Gordon stared at him emptily, as though every shred of strength in his body had drained away.
“But Tom – he was only seven. He can’t die when he’s only seven. We were going to play cricket together. I was going to teach him how to make things, how to mend cars. We were going to go out for a drink together when he grew up. I was going to see Gracie grow into a beautiful young woman and walk her down the aisle one day… She hasn’t even had ten years… How could anyone do that to them?”
Mavis pulled herself away from him.
“Stop it!” she said. “There must be a mistake. The Germans don’t kill children in cold blood – not my children. They wouldn’t sit there and deliberately sink a ship with a hundred children in it. Tell me it’s a mistake. Gordon, make him tell me it’s a mistake!”
Gordon slowly shook his head.
“No, love. It’s war. They wouldn’t have done it in the old days, but I remember back in the last war when they sank the Lusitania – that’s when all the rules got torn up. Now anything goes. A U-boat will sink anything it can, no matter who’s on board.”
“But look at what Hitler did for children – he made them strong and healthy, well fed, gave them hope and confidence about the future. You could see it in the newsreels. He loved them, and they worshipped him. This can’t be his doing. It must be people lower down, bad men, like the captain of that U-boat. Hitler will punish him – you’ll see.”
“I don’t think so, love,” said Gordon. “Maybe we just never cottoned on that what we saw was what Hitler wanted us to see. There were probably plenty of other kids in Germany who didn’t look all fresh-faced and eager like the ones in the films.”
Mavis began to sob again.
“We should never have sent them. We should have kept them here and protected them. If we hadn’t sent them they’d still be alive.”
“We can’t know that,” said Gordon gently. “They might have been killed right here in their own beds. It was the right decision to send them away. We couldn’t know what would happen.”
“But at least we’d have gone together. It’s not right for children to die before their parents. I’m so sorry, Gordon: I persuaded you they should go. It’s all my fault. My babies…”
Jackson rose from his chair. His hands were tense as they gripped the handle of his attaché case.
“Yes, Mr Jackson,” said Mavis, her voice now cold. “You’d better go home now. There’s nothing you can do here, and nothing you can say. Just go away, please. You’ve knocked on my door, and I’ve lost everything that means anything in my life.”