What happened next was spectacular, no doubt about it. Everyone who was there agreed – the girl with the baby, the crew of the Marianne in the lock with the Sparrowhawk, the crews of the Lily Rose and the Princess waiting to come through, the crew of the Secret Starling.
Federico, having leaped, missed his landing. For a split second, he clawed on to the edge of the lock with his front paws, scrabbling frantically with his back legs against the wall. It seemed as if he would slide back into the water and either be crushed between the wall and the Sparrowhawk, or drowned, or both. Then, with an impressive display of agility, he heaved himself up and over the edge of the lock. For a moment he stood still, getting his bearings. From the tiller of the Sparrowhawk, Lotti yelled at him to stay. Ignoring her, he raced away, past the Marianne, past the lock and flung himself into the canal at the ducks.
The ducks took off, as ducks always do.
And Federico … Federico tried to swim, but the water was being sucked towards the lock, dragging him under. Federico fought, managed to surface, was pulled under again, and once more fought his way back up. He was pulled a third time, and now he was tired …
On the bank, people were shouting. Federico caught a glimpse of the girl with the baby, the man from the Marianne … And Lotti! His Lotti, screaming at him from the Sparrowhawk, and Ben running towards him …
There was a splash, too heavy for Lotti. A splash and a deep voice swearing at him, using words Federico had only ever heard before from Malachy Campbell, and there was a sort of metal pole and a net and, as the crew of half a dozen narrowboats cheered, he was lifted out of the canal like a fish, and deposited shivering and dripping on the bank.
The lock gates opened, the Marianne and the Sparrowhawk came out. The Marianne went on her way, her crew waving. A shaking Lotti pulled the Sparrowhawk alongside the bank a safe distance from the lock and waited for Ben to help her moor up.
‘So much for being inconspicuous,’ he hissed as he arrived.
‘It’s not my fault!’ she protested.
‘I told you to watch out for him!’ said Ben, but Lotti was already running back to the towpath where Federico, with a shocking lack of gratitude, was shaking water all over his rescuer. With a cry, Lotti scooped the little dog into her arms.
The man who had rescued Federico was called Frank. He was the skipper of the Secret Starling, about forty years old, completely bald under his flat cap and dressed in an ancient patched jacket. He was also wet to his waist, and very cross.
‘Lucky for you I keep a fishing net on the Starling,’ he snarled at Lotti. ‘Lucky me and my brother Jim skipped our lunch earlier and stopped for a bite before moving on. Lucky Jim heard you scream, and is softer’n me and said we should help.’
‘Lucky Frank’s not as tough as he makes out and said yes.’ Jim, who had walked over from the Secret Starling along with the girl and the baby, was as cheerful as Frank was grumpy, with thick brown hair and a spray of forget-me-nots in the buttonhole of his corduroy jacket. ‘Lucky he didn’t think twice about it.’
Lotti, still holding Federico, held out a hand to Frank.
‘My name is Charlie,’ she told him. ‘And I’m forever in your debt. I’m sorry you got wet, and I’m very sorry about my dog. When it comes to birds he is appallingly behaved. I don’t know that I can ever thank you enough.’
‘All right, all right,’ grumbled Frank, and they all pretended not to notice he had gone a deep beetroot-red. ‘No need to go on about it.’
The brothers returned to the Secret Starling and drove away, Lotti enthusiastically waving them off.
‘Well!’ said the girl with the baby. ‘That was exciting.’
Her name was Molly and she was the lock-keeper’s daughter. Her parents had left her in charge of the lock and the baby while they went to London to fetch Molly’s sister Martha, who was just back from the war, driving ambulances in Central Europe.
‘I wanted to go too,’ said Molly.
‘To London?’ asked Lotti.
‘To Central Europe,’ said Molly. ‘But they wouldn’t let me. Said I’m too young.’
‘Grown-ups are horribly unfair,’ Lotti said sympathetically. ‘Believe me, we know.’
Molly’s eyes flicked over the Sparrowhawk. ‘Where are your parents?’
‘Dead,’ said Lotti. ‘We’re running away. Will you help us?’
*
‘I don’t understand!’ fumed Ben, when Emlyn Lock was safely behind them. ‘Why did you tell her we were running away?’
He was angry and Lotti was sorry for it, but she felt very calm.
‘Molly liked us,’ she said. ‘She thought we were exciting and she’s longing for excitement. She wanted to go to Central Europe! And I think, Ben, though I’m very good at lying, sometimes it’s better to tell the truth. I didn’t tell her much; I didn’t give any details. All I asked was that if a policeman comes, she tells him she hasn’t seen us.’
‘A lot of use that will be. About a million other people saw us. They were cheering us!’
‘I know,’ said Lotti. ‘But Molly is the one Constable Skinner is most likely to ask. Don’t be cross, Ben. It will be all right, I promise. Let’s stop soon and eat and take the dogs for a walk before they get up to any more mischief. We’ve been miles and miles already, and Constable Skinner doesn’t even know the Sparrowhawk’s gone yet.’
‘I’m not stopping,’ said Ben. ‘Not until we get to France.’
But soon he began to yawn, and once he had started the yawns just kept on coming. Lotti was right. There was no reason to push themselves further today, especially after such an early start.
A couple of miles after leaving Emlyn Lock, they came to a lovely stretch of canal, wide and quiet, with woodland on one side and meadows on the other, where they moored for the night. They gathered wood to make a fire, and with these comforting, familiar actions Ben’s anger began to dissipate.
When the flames had died sufficiently, he brought a grill from the Sparrowhawk, and put it over the embers to cook sausages.
‘I’ve been thinking about Clara,’ he said as he cooked. ‘Do you think we should have left her a note explaining what we are doing?’
Lotti, who still hadn’t forgiven Clara her own short little note, said, ‘She’d only come after us and try to stop us.’
The sausages, salty and slightly charred, cooked in the open air and shared with the dogs, were delicious. After they had eaten, Ben and Lotti took the dogs for a walk along the towpath until they came to a tunnel. Lotti leaned over the water to peer in, cupped one hand over her mouth and hooted. A faint echo hooted back.
‘We should camp in here,’ she said. ‘No one would ever find us.’
‘Apart from all the other boats coming through.’ Ben yawned again. ‘And you’re not allowed to stop in tunnels. It’s a law. Come on, I have to sleep.’
When they came back to the Sparrowhawk, bats were swooping over the meadow. The dogs flopped instantly asleep, but despite their tiredness Lotti and Ben stayed up on deck a little longer, unwilling to let the day go. Night fell and a barn owl sailed past like a ghost.
‘A good omen,’ Ben said.
Stars punctured the sky and the world felt perfect.
Ben and Lotti went to bed, intending to rise before dawn again the following day to continue their journey. But the peace of the evening, the beauty of the night, were too powerful. It was their first night sleeping alone on the Sparrowhawk and it felt delicious.
They slept late into the next morning.
How could they have known that Albert Skinner was already on their trail?
*
An outbreak of whooping-cough at his son’s nursing home having cut short Albert’s visit, he had returned to Great Barton late on Sunday afternoon. On his way home he stopped at the police station, where he found a letter from the War Office, informing him that there had been no news of Sam Langton since he was reported missing, believed killed ten months ago.
With a heavy heart, Albert went to the Sparrowhawk to tell Ben. On seeing that she was missing from her usual mooring, he went to Clara Primrose’s cottage. On finding her absent, he went to the boatyard to speak to John Snell.
‘Gone to find his brother,’ John said. ‘Didn’t say where.’
‘But his brother’s dead. Well, missing, but it’s the same thing.’
‘Just telling you what he told me.’
Gone to find his brother. It made no sense.
Albert was weary, and Albert was sad. He had been looking forward to a few days visiting his boy, who was beginning to show signs of recovering from his own war injury. But Albert was also conscientious. As Ben had predicted, he set out to interview the lock-keepers.
The first uphill lock was only a mile out of town. Albert walked over to it after speaking to John Snell, but the keeper there had not seen the Sparrowhawk. It was too late to go downhill all the way to Emlyn today. He decided to borrow a police car in the morning, and drive out to it first thing.
*
Far away in London, Clara lay in bed in her friend Kitty’s spare room, hugging her pillow close as if it could somehow take away her grief.
Max was dead. Not missing, believed but proper, no doubt about it dead. She had received a letter from a lawyer informing her of this, and inviting her to his office for a meeting.
‘He made a will,’ the lawyer told her, as if this somehow made things better. ‘He left everything to you. His family are very unhappy about it, that’s why it’s taken so long to inform you. You understand.’
No, Clara wanted to say, she didn’t understand. Her own parents had thrown her out of their home because of Max. His mother did not answer her letters. Clara didn’t see why she should be understanding at all, but she didn’t want to seem rude.
‘I can’t imagine he had anything much to leave,’ she said instead. ‘He wasn’t rich.’
‘Ah,’ said the lawyer.
And he told her that Max’s collection of love and war poems, the one which was named after her, had become a bestseller, and that all the royalties were to go to her.
‘I mean, it’s not millions,’ the lawyer said, as he handed her a cheque. ‘Poetry is poetry, after all. But it is something.’
Clara had cried for two days, and now there were no tears left, only an awful emptiness and the question: what was she going to do with her life, now that the waiting was over?