Little Whitebull
After Norah had run back to the fort and swished out the lemonade cups, they all started home for tea. When they reached the middle of the village, Harry and Jasper gave the Skywatchers’ secret signal—little finger and thumb extended like an aeroplane—and scampered down their lane. Tom and Norah put their fingers crossways under their noses and goose-stepped down the main street, singing loudly in time:
Whistle while you work!
Mussolini is a twerp!
Hitler’s barmy
So’s his army
Whistle while you work!
They passed the church and the stone vicarage beside it. The Smiths were probably inside, packing to go to Canada. Dulcie was in Norah’s class. She was the sort of girl who fretted if she forgot her handkerchief. Lucy was a little older than Gavin and spent a lot of her time whining.
“Poor Goosey and Loosey,” mocked Norah. “I bet they’ll be afraid of wolves in Canada.” Being nasty helped her calm down a bit. Then she felt sorry for them—they would be left out of the war.
She said goodbye to Tom at his mother’s grocery shop and ran to her house. She was late for tea, but Mum probably wouldn’t scold her.
That was part of Norah’s increasing uneasiness. Her parents let her and Gavin stay up late, spoke to them in strange, gentle voices and gave them sad looks when they thought the children didn’t notice. Gavin probably didn’t. But every night Norah listened to Mum and Dad’s worried murmur downstairs.
Norah paused at the front of her small, weather-boarded house. Its shabby exterior was brightened by the masses of zinnias and hollyhocks that flanked the door. A sign on the sagging gate said Little Whitebull in faded wooden letters. No one knew why their house was called that. It had been already named when her parents had bought it, just after Muriel was born.
The gate needed painting as well as mending, but Dad was too busy these days to do much work around the house. Norah studied the loose hinges; perhaps she could fix it and show them how useful she was. She could paint the sign again in bright red. And she would start to keep her room tidier and help with the washing up. Feeling more cheerful, she ran into the house.
“I’m home!” she shouted, clattering through the front room to the large kitchen where they spent most of their time. “Sorry I’m late, Mum.”
Mrs. Stoakes came out of the scullery and wiped back the lank hair that always hung into her eyes. “Where have you been, Norah?” she asked anxiously. “You weren’t anywhere near that German plane, were you? I just heard about it.”
“Not really,” mumbled Norah. Not near enough to touch it, she added to herself.
Her mother shuddered. “It was terribly close. The next thing we know, we’ll have one on top of us. Sit down, sweetheart, there’s sausages.”
Sweetheart? Mum never gushed; she was usually quick tempered and brusque. Now she was like a person in disguise.
If she was going to play-act, then Norah would too. “Thanks, Mum,” she said politely. “Did you have to queue long at the butcher’s?” She forced herself to eat slowly instead of wolfing down her food as usual.
Gavin was the only person who was himself. He sat at the table with his jammy bread divided into two, marching each one to collide with its twin and come apart in sticky strings. He hummed to himself with a dreamy expression, the way he always did in his private games.
Norah glanced at her mother. Surely she’d have to react to such a mess: there was jam all over the tablecloth. But all Mum said was, “Here, pet, let me wipe your hands.”
Norah sighed. Gavin usually got away with a lot, but not sloppy eating. She bent over her milky tea, her brain buzzing. Something was definitely up.
The hens in the back garden chittered indignantly as Dad pushed through the scullery door. He removed the bicycle clips from his trouser legs, kissed Mum, ruffled Gavin’s hair and grinned at Norah. “What have you been up to today? Seen anything interesting?” His green-grey eyes, which everyone said were exactly like hers, teased her as usual.
Norah forgot to be polite. “Oh, Dad, there was a crash-landed plane—a ME 109! You could see the bullet holes and the swastika and everything!”
“I passed it on my way home—the lorry was taking it away.”
“Norah!” snapped Mum. “I thought you said you weren’t close! You have to be more careful or I’ll make you stay in your own garden, like the Smith girls. I really don’t know what to do with you these days—the war is making you wild.”
“Now, Jane, she couldn’t come to much harm looking at a plane that’s out of commission,” said Dad mildly.
This was more normal. Norah relaxed and concentrated on her sausages, as Dad collapsed in his favourite chair with a groan. “Come and pull my shoes off, old man,” he said to Gavin. He had only an hour between arriving home from his bookkeeping job in Gilden and setting out for his Home Guard duties.
Gavin picked up his small worn elephant and went over to his father. “Creature will pull your shoes off—he’s very strong.”
What a baby Gavin was, still playing with toy animals. Jasper was only three years older, but he was as brave as Tom. Gavin was such a namby-pamby brother. Everyone said he should have been a girl, and Norah a boy.
Dad looked up from the pages of the Kentish Express. “They’re letting the hop-pickers come from London as usual,” he said to Mum. “It says arrangements have been made for protection in case of air raids.”
Mum opened the scullery door to cool off the steamy kitchen, which smelled pleasantly of hot fat and the clean clothes airing in front of the grate. Dad switched on the wireless and Gavin curled up in his lap. The familiar voice of Larry the Lamb filled the room.
Norah pretended to be too old for “The Children’s Hour”, but she still liked hearing Dennis the Dachshund talk backwards. As she listened, she surprised her mother by first helping dry the dishes and then sitting down to struggle with her knitting. The oily grey wool, which was supposed to be turned into a “comfort” for a sailor, cut into her hands.
“Good-night, children, everywhere,” said the voice from the wireless.
“Good-night, Uncle Mac,” said Gavin solemnly, as he always did.
“Dad,” whispered Norah nervously, after the news was over and while Mum was still in the scullery. There was something she had to find out, even though it scared her to ask. “Do you know if they found the pilot?”
Dad gave her a warning glance, the one that meant Don’t Worry Your Mother. “Yes,” he murmured. “They picked him up near Woodchurch. He was wounded, poor lad—gave himself up easily.”
Norah’s chest felt lighter. At least she didn’t have to worry about him wandering into their village.
Of course, if Hitler invaded Britain, as everyone thought he might, a lot of Nazis might come into Ringden—even into Little Whitebull! That thought made Norah feel choked up again and she shifted irritably. What was the matter with her? She had never been afraid before.
Her father stood up and stretched. “Time to get changed.” He caught his wife’s eye before he added, “Don’t make any plans for the morning, Norah. Your mother and I want to discuss something with you. And I’ll help you finish your kite tomorrow, Gavin, since it’s Saturday.”
“Can I stay up and listen to ‘ITMA’?” Norah asked desperately. If he said no, everything would be ordinary.
“I don’t see why not,” said Dad gently.
After he left, dressed in his World War I uniform and carrying a shotgun, Norah made herself into a tight ball in his chair. Her suspicions were growing to a terrible certainty.
Before she had time to ponder further, the back door opened again and a tubby man with a snowy fringe around his otherwise bald head struggled in, loaded with packages and suitcases.
“Grandad!” shouted Norah and Gavin.
“Father! What on earth are you doing here?”
The old man chuckled as he let his luggage drop. He lifted Gavin into the air. “Bombed out! The drafted Hun put one right through my roof! All rubble, my dears, all rubble. So I’ve come to stay with you.” He bent over to Norah and tickled her cheek with his stiff moustache. “What do you think of that, my fierce little soldier?”
Mum sank to a chair. “Bombed out … Father, are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“Don’t fret, Janie. I’m right as rain, because I wasn’t at home when they called. Came back from the pub to find a flattened house. So I just packed up what I could find and got on the bus. Better to live inland anyhow—the salt air was bad for my rheumatism.” His sea-blue eyes sparkled under his droopy white eyebrows. “Got enough room for your old dad?”
“You know we have—we’d always give you a home. But you could have been killed! Oh, Father, this bloody war …”
Norah froze, shocked, as her mother, whom she had never seen cry, began to shake with sobs. Her mouth trembled and the tears slid over her thin cheeks as her weeping grew louder.
“Don’t, Muv!” cried Gavin, pulling on her arm. “Did you hurt yourself?” Mrs. Stoakes pulled him onto her knee and clutched him to her, burying her face in his neck. Gavin looked scared and tried to free himself.
“Now, now, Jane, enough of that.” Grandad patted his daughter’s shoulder awkwardly. “I wasn’t killed. Never felt more alive, in fact. Nothing like a close call to make you see things in perspective! We’ll weather this war out together now—that’s how it should be, the whole family in one place.” He released Gavin from his mother’s grasp. “If you search my pockets, you might find a sweetie.”
“To avoid watching her mother, Norah turned to the fire and lifted the heavy kettle of water onto the grate. She had never made tea on her own befoe, but she’d seen Mum do it often enough. When the water boiled she poured it carefully over the leaves and filled the cups with milk, sugar and tea. She offered one to Mum and one to Grandad.
“Norah, what a help!” Mum’s tears had stopped and she gave a weak smile. “What would I do without you?” Then she looked as if she might cry again.
Norah poured herself a cup, surprised her mother hadn’t said anything about using some of tomorrow’s rations. They all sat around the kitchen table and, to her relief, the adults began to talk normally.
Norah stared incredulously at Grandad, hardly daring to believe he was here. The war was shifting people around too rapidly. Some, like Molly and Muriel and Tibby, suddenly went away; others turned up unannounced and homeless. A few days ago the whole of Mrs. Parker’s brother’s large family had arrived on her doorstep. Their house in Detling had been bombed and they, too, had been lucky enough to be out when it happened.
Norah’s throat and chest constricted with fear as she thought of Grandad’s cottage, the one where she’d spent her summers, flattened to rubble. But Grandad was safe, and it would be wonderful to have him living with them. She wondered what Dad would think. Although Mum and Grandad often argued, they thrived on it. Dad was always polite, but Norah knew he and the old man didn’t agree on much.
Grandad winked at Norah. “Now we’ll have a good time, eh young ones?”
Norah winked back. She climbed onto Grandad’s knee and began to tell him about the plane.
Later that night a commotion downstairs woke her up. Dad had arrived home and was exclaiming about finding Grandad there. Norah lay rigidly in bed, listening to the usual murmur of worried adult voices. Then Grandad’s rose above the rest, angry and accusing. She couldn’t make out his words but the stubborn strength in his voice cheered her up. If her parents were telling him the decision she dreaded, Grandad was on her side.