| |
The cellar at Southwold had been crudely converted into a bomb shelter with the addition of corrugated iron sheets nailed to the ceiling. The Earl had lobbied for a separate Anderson shelter for the staff, but even that modest request had been denied him. They were required to shelter democratically, family and staff together.
Sylvia was home for the weekend, taking time off from the comfortable office job her father had managed to obtain for her in London. Dennis thought it somewhat ironic that she should escape the bombing in London only to sit through an air raid at home in the Sussex countryside, not that anywhere was safe from the Luftwaffe. Something would have to be done. The Americans encamped on Rose Hill Common would have to do something. They couldn’t just sit there forever. They had come to fight, so let them fight.
At last the all clear echoed across the village green, its sound seeping in faintly through the doorway held open by Robbie, Mrs. Pearson’s slow-witted nephew. He was too slow-witted to go to war and too slow-witted to stand away from the open door.
“It’s over,” Sylvia declared. “You’d better go and look, Daddy.”
“Yes, I should,” Dennis agreed. “Let’s see what damage Adolf has done this time. Do you want to come with me and show yourself around?”
“The caring lady of the manor? No, thank you.”
“Your mother would have.”
“Well, my mother is not here and I’m going back to bed.”
Dennis had requisitioned the gamekeeper’s bicycle early in the war, and he had formed the habit of riding out after every bombing raid just to reassure the people that he had survived. The King and Queen visited the suffering people of London as often as they could, and he liked to think that he was made in the same mold. Noblesse oblige.
The moon was playing hide-and-seek among scattered clouds, but the night was bright enough for him to see where he was going, and he knew better than to use the headlight attached to the handlebars.
He was crossing the green when the girl came out of nowhere. She appeared to simply rise out of the ground in front of him, waving her arms and shouting.
He applied the bicycle’s rusty brakes and came to a juddering halt as she flung herself toward him.
“There’s a bomb,” she shouted.
“A bomb?”
“Yes, a bloody great bomb.”
The moon came out from behind the clouds and illuminated her face. She was not someone that he recognized, but she was a pretty girl bearing a faint resemblance to his own daughter. The resemblance did not surprise him. In ages past, the Earls of Southwold had sown their wild oats very close to home.
“Are you an air-raid warden?” the girl asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m the Earl.”
She seemed unimpressed by that piece of information. “I need to find whoever is in charge.”
“I’m the Earl,” he repeated. “I’m in charge.”
This time the information seemed to sink in. “Oh, all right. Well, Your Lordship, there’s a bomb.”
“Where?”
She pointed behind her to the place where she had seemed to rise out of the ground. “There, across the steps.”
“Steps?”
Now she was annoyed. “The air-raid shelter; that’s the air-raid shelter and it’s full of people, and they can’t get out.”
“Were you down there?” Dennis asked.
“Yes, I was, but—”
“You got out.” Dennis thought his statement was not unreasonable.
“I slid past it. I didn’t touch it.”
“You slid past it?” Dennis repeated. “You slid past it! Good God, girl, it could have blown up in your face.”
“Well, it didn’t.”
“Any slight touch,” Dennis scolded, “could set it off.”
“I know, I know.” The girl was impatient with him. “It could go up any minute and everyone’s in there. My mum’s in there. What are we going to do?”
“Where’s the air-raid warden?”
“He’s in there with everyone else.”
“Ah,” said Dennis.
The girl repeated her question. “What are we going to do?”
Dennis gathered his scattered wits. He had been bred to take command. From the playing fields of Eton to the trenches of the Great War, command and the unquestioned obedience of the lower classes were all that he knew. He took charge.