Chapter Sixteen

“If I can say, Ruth,” Walter announced, getting to his feet and brushing some imaginary dust off his battle-dress jacket, “I’m not sure I did the right thing.”

Putting down her fountain pen, Ruth pushed her glasses up onto her forehead and tried to keep herself from laughing.

In front of his desk stood a fine figure of a soldier, if you had no idea what a soldier should look like. In her years in the newspaper business, even in such a quiet backwater like the Hamble Gazette, she’d come across many sayings, and one immediately sprang to mind upon seeing Walter—If the army gives you something and it fits, it’s a mistake.

There was no danger of this rule being applied to Walter. Currently, he was tugging up the waistband of his trousers and endeavoring to tighten his belt so half a yard of material didn’t hang down between his legs and give the impression he was shedding his skin. He turned around and around in an effort to see behind his back, without any obvious success. From his position under her desk, Bobby cocked his head to one side, his furry eyebrows joining together in curiosity at the strange creature before him. Unfortunately for Walter, Ruth was unable to see the doggy intrigue and so was in no position to stop what happened next.

Walter had given up trying to see behind him and had a dismayed expression upon his face. No matter how much he tightened his belt, the instant he let go of his trousers, they fell back down to their original position. His gathering dismay as he reached down to poke and prod at the excess khaki material hanging down was replaced by shock as Bobby, barking fit to wake the dead, launched himself out from beneath Ruth’s desk. Before either Walter or his owner could stop him, he’d clamped his jaws firmly between Walter’s legs.

Ruth shot to her feet, or tried to, as her chair refused to push backward when most needed and the top of her thighs rammed into the underside of her desk. Unable to stop Bobby, her immediate plan of hauling him off her assistant and friend was thwarted, and she collapsed back into her seat, clutching her legs and biting her lips in pain. Walter yelled at the top of his voice, and despite her discomfort, Ruth found it very difficult to stifle a laugh at the spectacle before her. Round and round Walter went with Bobby between his legs, jaws firmly clamped around the hanging material. The expression upon the dog’s face was nothing but one of pure enjoyment.

In the middle of all this, the doorbell jingled and in hobbled Lawrence.

“What the hell!” he exclaimed, leaning against the doorframe.

Ruth mopped the tears from her eyes. “Take a load off your feet, Herbert, and enjoy the show.”

Lawrence rolled his eyes. Though she occasionally slipped, his aunt was now the only person who regularly called him by his real first name. Throwing himself into the spare wooden seat next to Ruth’s desk, Lawrence laid his crutch down on the floor and took his cue from Ruth. “You wouldn’t like to tell me what’s going on, would you?”

Ruth glanced at her watch before leaning toward her nephew and began, “Not too sure…” before catching sight of where Walter had sat back down and was trying to prise Bobby’s jaws from the material. Promptly she slumped back into her chair and let out the laugh she’d been trying to keep in.

“You’re a lot of bloody help, mate,” Walter told his friend as he finally managed to persuade Bobby to let go. Much to his dismay, he saw the truculent pooch trot off with quite a substantial amount of khaki material still clamped in his jaws. Taking back his usual place beneath Ruth’s desk, Bobby began to chew upon his prize.

Lawrence, relaxing into his seat, shook his head as his face split into a wide grin. “After everything I’ve been through, it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything so funny.”

Perhaps forgetting a lady was present, Walter poked a hand through the hole in the material and waggled his fingers. “The sergeant’s going to kill me,” he announced.

Lawrence clicked his fingers and Bobby briefly raised his head. Upon finding no food was on offer, he recommenced his chewing, ignoring Lawrence’s efforts. “When’s your next parade?” he asked.

“Tonight, at seven,” Lawrence answered miserably.

“You’d better get off home then, Walter,” Ruth told him, managing to find her voice. “Find the sewing kit.”

“Another thing I’m no good at,” Walter declared to the room at large, as he got to his feet after covering his typewriter.

Before he could leave the office, Ruth remembered, “What were you on about? You know, before Bobby decided to…play.”

The initial expression upon his face was one of confusion before he remembered what he’d muttered earlier. “Ah.” He flicked one of the buttons on his tunic. “I know I’ve only had one training weekend, but I hate, really hate, marching. I know my left from my right, but put me on parade? I get confused and usually mess up the whole thing for everyone else.”

Lawrence rearranged his grin into a face of understanding. “Give it time. It’ll come, don’t worry.”

“All right for you to say,” Walter replied, unable to keep his unhappiness from his voice.

“Why don’t you ask Doris to sew them for you?” Ruth suggested.

Walter stopped dead in his tracks, the door half open. He turned his head back to where Ruth sat, making sure to check she was serious before replying. “Not if I want to keep seeing her, I won’t,” he replied, before leaving.

Lawrence waited until Walter had disappeared from view before asking Ruth what he’d meant.

Being more careful this time, Ruth slowly pushed her seat back before getting to her feet. After massaging her thighs for a moment, she answered, “If I say it’s Doris who wears the trousers in their relationship, you’d get my meaning.” Her nephew nodded. “So what brings you here? Bored already?”

Lawrence stretched out his injured leg, letting out sounds of relief as he did so. “A little,” he admitted.

“Why not take a walk up to the airfield? You told me Jane said you’re welcome any time you wish.”

Lawrence ran his uninjured hand through his hair, managing to look both disheveled and sheepish at the same time, quite the trick. “Very nice of her.”

“The problem is?” Ruth prompted.

“After what happened, everyone who’s still there from last year knows I’m a copper, and everyone I didn’t know from then would soon find out.”

Ruth frowned. “What’s the problem? There’s nothing wrong with being a policeman.”

He reached for her hand and leant forward so he could kiss her fingers. “Bless you, Aunt. I know you’re right. However, it doesn’t mean to say your everyday man or woman on the street feels the same way. I’ve already visited, and the girls besides, all I felt wherever I went was eyes on the back of my head. As our friends are away for most of the day, it would get quite boring, simply sitting around on the airfield, waiting for them to get back. And,” he raised his voice slightly as Ruth was showing every sign of interrupting, “yes, I know Jane and probably Thelma would put up, possibly quite happily, with me, only I don’t want to get in the way.”

“You wouldn’t,” Ruth automatically defended her friends.

“Yes,” Lawrence countered, “I probably would.”

Ruth’s face took on a mischievous look as she bent down beneath her desk and dragged a comatose Bobby onto her lap, the by now very wet piece of Walter’s uniform hanging from his mouth. “So I’m second choice, am I? Nowhere else to go?”

Matching her expression, he replied, “A little too early to go to the pub.”

“Oh, very well played,” Ruth told him, with a small nod of her head as she glanced at her wristwatch. “As it happens, it’s about opening time, so you can walk me to the pub. It’s time to shut up for the day.” She got to her feet and unceremoniously dumped a still slumbering Bobby onto Lawrence’s lap. “Hold the pup for a second. I’m going to check the place is all locked up.”

****

On their way to the Victory public house, Bobby—either because he was in a playful mood or annoyed after being woken up—had done his best to trip the two humans up. Alternately he’d pulled on his leash or nipped behind them and attempted to worm his way between his human’s legs. With some relief, they took their drinks to a table.

“I don’t know what’s come over you,” Ruth admonished her cocker spaniel, who’d taken up residence beneath the table where a small saucer of stout was rapidly disappearing. She took a long draft of her own rather larger glass of Guinness.

Lawrence too took a long pull from his pint. “I think it’s good he’s discovered his second puppyhood since the war broke out.”

Ruth pondered what he’d said before replying, “Or rather since he sounded the alert when the airfield was bombed.”

Both of them looked down at where her heroic dog had finished his drink and was now circling in preparation for a post-drink snooze.

“What are you working on at the moment?” Lawrence asked, as Ruth took out a notepad and pen from her bag and laid them on the table. He snaked out a hand toward the pad, only to have his aunt smack it away.

“Hands off,” she told him, picking it up and flicking it open before looking at him. “It’s just a piece I’m rewriting for tomorrow’s issue on the RAF raid against the German dams.”

“Tomorrow’s issue?” he asked, puzzled.

“Don’t worry, it is printed. This is for me,” Ruth informed him, adding to make things clearer, “This is just for me. You know I always think I can do better.”

Upon hearing this, a wide smile spread across Lawrence’s face. “Hell of a headline. The nerves those boys must have, eh!”

“True,” his aunt said in much the same tone of voice. “Such a shame it cost so many of them their lives.” She raised her glass in salute. “To the RAF,” she announced, not troubling to keep her voice down. “The Dambusters!”

It wasn’t only Lawrence who answered in kind. Everyone in the pub, a big, old Victorian building beginning to fill with the early evening crowd, also raised their glasses and echoed her words. Both raised their eyebrows, certain everyone knew what they were toasting, or nearly everyone.

One person, a young lady with a nurse’s cape around her shoulders, sat on her own in a corner. If she’d raised her glass at the same time as everyone else, she wouldn’t have set off Lawrence’s copper radar. He had a nagging feeling about her and asked his aunt if she looked familiar.

Not worried if she was seen, Ruth pushed herself out of her chair, the better to look at where Lawrence was pointing behind her. “I think she’s the nurse who was looking after Betty when she was stabbed,” she ventured.

“Only one way to find out,” Lawrence decided, picking up his crutch and heaving himself to his feet. “Meet me over there, would you?”

Matching actions to words, he hobbled, taking care not to spill any of his drink, over to where the nurse was sitting. He’d got about halfway to her table when she noticed him. Her eyes went wide, and he sped up, fearful she might take to her heels before he could reach her table. In his current condition, he had no chance of catching her if she wanted to leave. Though it went against his training to draw attention to himself, he yelled out to her the first name he thought of.

“Grace! Grace Buxton!”

Some part of his guess must have been correct, as the girl stopped in the act of picking up her bag. She didn’t move away, nor did she sit down, remaining standing as Lawrence reached her. Slightly out of breath, his forehead creased in pain from the pressure he’d just applied to his injured leg when it wasn’t ready, Lawrence clasped the back of the chair opposite the nurse. At least his wrist wasn’t causing him pain anymore, he thought after the fact.

It wasn’t the way he would wish to greet someone who’d been so good to one of his friends, but he needed her to not change her mind and run away. Taking out his wallet, he showed her his warrant card. It at least had the effect of assuring her he wasn’t some nutcase in a pub, and she retook her seat. She didn’t let go of her bag, though.

“Do I know you?” she asked. “And it’s Grace Baxter. Nurse Grace Baxter.”

After a moment, she held out a slightly reddened hand, the redness likely caused by the harsh chemicals and hard work she performed daily. Lawrence took it firmly, shaking it without hesitation, and despite the discomfort he was in, pasted a wide smile upon his face.

Being a nurse, he didn’t fool her, and her natural caring instincts kicked in. Letting go of her bag, she rushed around to Lawrence’s side of the table and just before Ruth reached the pair, took him by the elbow, pulled out a seat with the other hand and urged him to take it.

“Thank you, Grace. I’m Detective Inspector Herbert Lawrence, but call me Lawrence.”

If Lawrence and Ruth hadn’t been quite certain who the nurse was, Bobby had no hesitation. Sluggish he may have been after being dragged to his feet, but as soon as his eyes caught sight of her, his ears went up and he pulled the leash from Ruth’s hand in his eagerness to get to Grace Baxter. Once at her side, he went up onto his hind legs, pawing at her cloak with his front paws and yapping in excitement. The nurse looked down at this commotion, and from the way her eyes crinkled at the sides, the recognition was mutual.

“Well, hello there, Bobby!” She reached down and, to Bobby’s evident delight, scratched him behind the ears.

Ruth, from the seat she’d taken besides her nephew, looked on a little bemusedly and told him, “I guess we were right.”

“Forgive me, please,” Grace asked, as she retook her seat. “I never forget a dog, but I have a rotten memory for human faces.”

“In all fairness,” Ruth began, “I don’t think we were ever introduced. You may recall a friend of ours from late last year, Betty Palmer. ATA from Hamble? She came in with a stab wound?”

At the mention of Betty, Grace’s eyes shot up. “Yes. Now I remember. We don’t get many of those. How’s she doing now?”

“No problems at all,” Ruth told her, holding out a hand at the same time. “I’m Ruth Stone. I run the local newspaper.”

Bobby, his welcome to the nurse exhausted, flopped down over her shoes and closed his eyes. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

Lawrence looked a little sheepish. “No real reason. I happened to notice you didn’t raise your glass when Ruth toasted the RAF.”

Ruth had been studying Grace’s face as she and her nephew talked, and a growing understanding came over her. To test her theory, she caught the nurse’s eye, opened her mouth as if to speak, then held a hand in front of her mouth as she actually spoke. “Are you permanently deaf?” she asked. When only Lawrence turned in shock toward her, with Grace merely wearing a frown, she knew she was right. Taking her hand away, she enunciated a little more slowly and clearly than she had been speaking. “I’m sorry, Grace, the curse of being a nosey reporter. Are you permanently deaf?” she repeated.

Whether she felt insulted or not, Grace didn’t let her feelings stop her from replying. “Not from what the doctors tell me,” she answered.

“What happened?” Lawrence asked at the same time as Ruth. Being deaf in his left ear, he could easily sympathize.

“I was caught in a street in London when a gas main exploded,” she began to explain. “Apart from my hearing, I got lucky.”

“How long ago was this?” Ruth wanted to know.

“About two months.”

“But the doctors say you’ll get your hearing back?” Ruth needed to check.

Both Lawrence and Ruth recognized a wry smile when they saw one as Grace shrugged.

“But you can lip-read,” Ruth stated. “Either you’re a very quick learner or…?”

A genuine smile came to Grace’s lips this time. “My mother’s deaf. I never thought it would come in handy again, though.”

There then followed one of those times when everyone present chose the same moment to take a collective breath. Because of this, Ruth heard what sounded like some girl stifling a sob. Raising her head, she searched as best she could until she caught a flash of red hair in the corner. Sitting on her own, a glass of untouched stout before her, was Shirley. Before her on the table was a crunched-up piece of paper. Immediately, Ruth’s trouble-alert meter went off.

Ruth pushed herself to her feet and, making certain Grace could see her lips, said, “Don’t go anywhere, please. I want to ask you a favor, but first, I need to go and speak to our Shirley over there.”