With the school shut and the children cooped up at home, Fred declared that he would resume the Latin lessons, but Tommy was too distracted even to thank him for the offer. No one seemed particularly bothered when she told them that Barbara Hastings and her daughter were coming to stay. Even her mother, whom she’d expected to complain, said only that it would be pleasant for Thomasina to have a friend around.
‘I barely know her!’ protested Tommy. ‘I haven’t seen her for years if you don’t count last week.’
‘If she’s been living with Veronica Macintyre, she must be respectable.’ Her mother was embroidering a cushion cover but her fingers were now become arthritic and her progress was very slow. She peered down hard at it as she moved her needle carefully through the fabric, drawing a long shiny thread after it. ‘What do you know of her circumstances?’
‘Only what she told me the other day. Her husband was in the army and they lived in India for a long while. Their daughter Molly was born there. He was killed in Burma and now she seems quite alone.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t want to help her then.’
‘I do want to help her! But . . .’ She stopped. There seemed no answer to it. Hadn’t she opened her doors to a parcel of little evacuees, total strangers from goodness only knew what background? So why was she so reluctant to shelter Barbara and her daughter?
‘It seems to me,’ her mother said, ‘that another woman who knows what you have suffered might be a comfort, not a hindrance.’
‘Well, they’re coming tomorrow afternoon and even if I wrote now, I don’t suppose it would reach them in time.’
‘You could telephone if you’re determined to refuse.’
Tommy quailed at the thought of talking to Veronica and in any case, she knew exactly what would happen: she would back down and give in. ‘No, it’s all right. I might as well tell Clara to make up the extra beds.’
The one thing that cheered Tommy up was the sight of the coal man, his truck lumbering up the lane to deliver her ration.
‘How do ye do, ma’am,’ he said as she ran out to greet him.
‘Well, this is very welcome!’ she cried. The bright morning sun glittered on what was left of the previous fall of snow. ‘You’re just in time. We’re nearly out!’
‘I’ve got two ton for you.’
‘Oh, thank goodness. We’re running so low. But my ration is six tons. Is more coming?’
The coal man jumped down from the cab of his truck and began to haul the dirty sacks off the back. They left black and grey smudges in the snow, which looked even filthier against the white. ‘I don’t know about that. There’s plenty who won’t get their ration, not enough is coming through. And if you’ve got your boiler coke, don’t waste it now. There’s no more to be had.’
‘No more?’ Tommy said, dismayed.
‘Not right now. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, I’ll take these to your bunker.’
The arrival of the coal was a great relief but her two tons did not go far to filling up the coal bunker, and there was little clue as to when there would be more. They would have to be careful; there could be no relaxation in their vigilance.
I’m so tired of it all, she thought, putting on her hat in front of the mirror in the passage by the kitchen. It’s been so long since we were able to live without thinking about saving everything. Petrol, soap, clothes, food. On and on it goes. Never ending.
She reached for her coat and was pulling it on when Fred came down the passageway looking anxious.
‘What are you doing, Tommy?’
‘I’m driving to the station to collect Barbara, remember?’
‘I’ve just been listening to the wireless news and they are warning of severe weather conditions tonight. A frightful blast of snow and cold.’
Tommy sighed. ‘Well, that’s just wonderful. At least we got some coal before it arrived.’
‘Are you sure you should drive to the station?’
‘What choice have I got? I can hardly leave Barbara and Molly to freeze on the platform, can I? They’re coming and that’s that.’
‘Can’t you telephone to Veronica and ask if they’re on their way?’
‘Oh, they will be, believe me. You’ve never seen anyone so eager to be rid of her guests as Veronica. I’m sure I shall be all right. It’s not snowing yet and if it started now, I’d have time to get there and back.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Fred said. ‘Just to be sure. I’ll meet you at the car.’
Before she could say anything, he had hurried off to get his things.
Fred put a shovel and some blankets into the back of the car, and two stone hot water bottles wrapped in more blankets.
‘Won’t those be useless in no time?’ Tommy said, coming out after him. ‘Oh my goodness – it’s so cold!’
The air had a hard bite to it, eating at her cheeks with icy fangs, and her fingers were instantly numb. It was already getting dark and trepidation filled her as her animal senses told her there was danger in the world tonight and that the safest thing was to retreat to somewhere warm.
‘Go and change your shoes,’ Fred said briefly, looking down at her sturdy leather lace-ups. ‘Those won’t be warm enough. Do you have anything else?’
‘I’ve got some fur-lined boots,’ she said.
‘Put them on.’ He grimaced in the gathering gloom. ‘This is a fool’s errand but we’re in for it now. Shall I drive?’
‘No, it’s my car. I’ll drive it,’ Tommy replied quickly. ‘I think I can manage a bit of cold. We’ll be fine.’
Once they set off, though, she was shivering quickly. Beside her, Fred sat wrapped up in a blanket, his hat pulled low. ‘We might warm up in here in a bit,’ he said. ‘The hot water bottles might do something.’
But their two bodies and the stone bottles seemed like nothing against the might of the cold. The roads were not too bad, though Tommy could sense a little slipperiness under the wheels. It felt like everything was waiting, anticipating whatever was to come.
It seemed to take forever to reach the end of the lane and then things became a little easier on the main road, where there were other cars and trucks. Very few people were out on the streets of the village, and lights glowed from behind curtains as darkness fell hard around them.
‘What train are they on?’ Fred asked.
‘The 5.05.’
‘We should be there in time, then. But it’s going to be slow getting back.’
Tommy nodded and stared out at the darkness that awaited beyond the lights of the village. The station was still a way off, on the outskirts of the small town of Wedford five miles on from the village. She knew this road well: she had roared along it without a second thought many times. Now it was strange and perilous and she strained to see every familiar landmark.
Fred said quietly, ‘I admire your courage, Tommy. You’ve got grit.’
She laughed lightly. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Driving a car is nothing. I’m sure you’ve seen real courage.’
‘I’ve seen different courage, perhaps. But it’s all from the same place. It’s pressing on with determination no matter how grim it looks outside. That’s what you’re doing now. It would have been easier to call Veronica and cancel Barbara – is she your problem after all?’
Tommy tightened her grip on the steering wheel. ‘You don’t understand. I’ve taken the coward’s way out.’ She turned quickly to smile at him. ‘You should try crossing Veronica, it’s much more terrifying than this.’
Fred laughed. ‘Even so. I admire it.’
It was a relief to see the lights of the town and the sign to the station. They were five minutes early for the train, and they stood together on the platform, stamping and blowing on their gloved fingers to thaw them. Fred offered her a cigarette and they stood smoking together.
‘Is the Oxford train on time?’ enquired Tommy of the stationmaster as he came out.
‘As far as I know.’ He shook his head gloomily. ‘But who knows what waits for us tomorrow?’ There was a click as the signals changed and the lights above them glowed green and red. ‘Ah, here she is!’
The sound that was muffled at first grew louder as the train rounded the bend in the track towards them, a great black shape in the darkness with a bright yellow eye, then puffed to a stop with a shrill whistle and a release of steam. Tommy was both relieved to see it and filled with a sense of gloom that it was now inevitable. Barbara was here.
They waited until all the doors were open, watching for a woman and a little girl, and then there they were, Barbara unmistakable with the broad shoulders of her navy coat and her blonde hair falling long over her shoulders. She carried a Gladstone bag and a box tied with string. Next to her was a small girl well wrapped up against the cold, clutching a teddy bear.
Tommy waved, full of a sudden sympathy for the two figures that seemed so lost. How horrible it must be to be homeless. ‘Barbara! Hello!’
Barbara spied her and waved back. ‘Tommy. How marvellous to see you.’
Tommy and Fred went over to meet them. ‘Barbara, this is Mr Burton Brown. Fred, this is Mrs Hastings.’
They said their how do you dos while Tommy said, ‘Hello, Molly, how nice to meet you,’ but the little girl said nothing, only gazed up at her from light blue eyes like her mother’s. Fred arranged to collect the suitcases from the porter while the women made their way back to the car.
‘It’s absolutely freezing,’ Barbara said, in her high, thin voice. ‘Molly and I were huddled together all the way, and we were still shivering. The guard said there was warm air coming out of the vents, but we never felt it, did we, Molly?’
Molly shook her head and Tommy could see she was trembling with cold. ‘You poor things. Let’s get in the car. There are blankets and hot water bottles, though I’m afraid they may be only tepid by now. There are sandwiches too. Oh good, here’s Fred with the suitcases. Now we can start for home, and the sooner we get going, the sooner we shall be there.’
The drive home was much worse than the one out. The temperature was lower than Tommy thought she’d ever known, and as they pulled away from the station, the first scattering of white fluff in the air, swirling in the beam from the headlights like large motes of dust, heralded the snow.
‘It’s here,’ Tommy said, wide-eyed.
‘Let’s hope we get back in time,’ Fred murmured.
Barbara started off by trying to talk in a jolly voice, but she soon gave up. All of them could only think about the snow which went in a matter of minutes from a light flurry to a thick blizzard of flakes, whirling around them. As they left the lights of the town, Tommy could see almost nothing in front of her and was forced to drop her speed to barely a walking pace as she tried to pick out the road in front of her through the spinning white. Outside the snow was settling fast. Within twenty minutes the ground was thickly blanketed and she began to feel real fear at their situation. In the back Barbara and Molly sat close together under the blankets, their anxious eyes gleaming in the darkness as they stared out at the wildness beyond the car.
‘I think we’re going to have to go faster,’ Fred muttered. ‘The roads are going to be impassable if it goes on at this rate. I think we’ve got about half an hour before we’ll risk getting stuck.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Tommy, worried. ‘The drive home is half an hour from here on a good day. But I’ll do my best.’
‘You’re doing very well,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Keep going.’
Tommy began to gain some confidence as she went and her eye grew accustomed to making out the road between the larger banks of snow on either side so she picked up speed.
‘That’s it, that’s the ticket,’ Fred said. ‘We’re not too far from the village now.’
But it seemed miles and miles away as they crawled along the deserted road.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tiny and alone in my whole life, Tommy thought. Huge forces were raging outside. What on earth were they doing, trying to fight them? Well, there’s no choice now. We have to go on. We can hardly go back.
The snow was already a foot deep as they approached the village but the car was ploughing through the soft, hardly set layers. Nevertheless, Tommy could feel the resistance growing. It would not be long before they wouldn’t be able to force a way through. And there was the awful cold too. Her fingers on the steering wheel were numbed and painful, her toes were impossible to feel. Only the adrenaline of driving was keeping her warm at all. She could sense Fred beside her, huddled down into himself, folding his slender body up to preserve warmth, fighting against the urge to shiver.
‘Nearly there,’ he said.
‘Oh look!’ Tommy said brightly. ‘Look, Molly, that’s the village, can you see the lights? We’re nearly home!’
‘That’s good,’ said the girl’s small voice from the back of the car.
‘What a relief!’ Barbara said, and it was evident how worried she had been.
Tommy looked over at Fred, hoping she was conveying the thought that was now in her mind – that they were far from safely home. The hardest part was yet to come.
As they motored slowly through the village, Tommy wondered if they should take a wiser course and stop for the night somewhere. The vicar and his wife would surely give them shelter. The lights were on in the large house by the green where the Hendersons lived. But something in Tommy urged her forward and she didn’t suggest that they stopped. As they left the shelter of the village, the snow grew much worse, the drifts against the hedges now higher than the car and the level of snow in the road approaching two feet. She pressed her foot down on the accelerator as the car nosed forward into the swirling blackness, and stared out through the moving windscreen wipers as hard as she could, trying to see the signpost that would tell her when to turn into the lane. All the familiar landmarks were lost in the dark and the blanket of thick snow. The snow falling on the car was mounting up and the bonnet was covered.
Fred turned to her, his face grey with cold. ‘You’d better stop for a moment – don’t switch the engine off. I’m going to clear the snow off the windscreen.’
She stopped obediently and he opened his passenger door. A gust of freezing snow came whirling in and then he was out and the door slammed behind him. She watched, shivering as he wiped away mounds of snow from the windscreen and bonnet with his arm, and then braced herself for the torrent of cold as he got back in.
‘All done,’ he said, and his teeth were chattering as he huddled back down. ‘There’s no time to lose, old thing. Put your foot down if you can.’
But when Tommy pressed on the accelerator, she could feel how much momentum they had lost by stopping. The car pushed against the snow and began slowly to move, but the pressure against it was growing at every moment. The engine whined as it struggled.
‘How far do you think we are?’ asked Fred in a low voice.
‘We must be almost at the lane. From there it’s half a mile or so to the house.’
‘Half a mile.’ He looked at her grimly and she could see his expression in the half-light. ‘It’s going to be tight. But we’ve got no choice. We can’t walk in this. We’d be lost in no time.’ He turned to look over his shoulder at the passengers in the back. ‘We’ll be home before too long, don’t you worry.’ Then to Tommy he said, ‘Do what you can.’
‘We’ll get there,’ Tommy said determinedly. ‘I know we will.’
It was only by luck that she spotted the turn-off to the lane. The world outside was so changed that it was impossible to get any bearings. Turnings, hedgerows, familiar trees had all disappeared and there was nothing to tell road from field. But the beam of the headlights caught a bit of the sign not covered by snow and Tommy noticed the gleam long enough to recognise what it was.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘We turn right here. We’re not far away.’
‘This blizzard is extraordinary,’ Fred murmured. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s Siberian.’
‘What will it be like in the morning?’ Tommy asked.
‘That’s why we have to get back,’ Fred said. ‘Don’t give up, will you?’
‘I won’t,’ Tommy said, trying to force more strength out of the car, ‘but the engine might. The tyres don’t want to turn any more.’
The snow in the lane was deeper than on the road, for it had been blown hard over the fields to fill the gap between the low hedges. The level was almost over the bonnet.
‘Oh Fred,’ Tommy said, frightened now. ‘I don’t think we can get much further.’ She turned to him anxiously. ‘We must be close.’
‘Go on as far as you can, every little counts.’
She pushed down, urging the little car on, and it fought forward a few more feet.
‘I’ll get out and shovel,’ Fred said.
‘You can’t. It’ll take far too long for you to make a path and the snow will fill it up as quickly as you do it. Come on.’ She urged the car on and it made headway of another few feet, and then it would go no further. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘We must be a quarter of a mile from home.’ The thought of Captain Scott and his men drifted into her mind. They had been so close to survival but a blizzard had stopped them from reaching supplies and so they froze in their tent. Is that what will happen to us? Dead in our car, so close to food and warmth? ‘Fred. What shall we do?’
Fred turned to her, pulling the torch from his coat. He switched it on. His lips were pinched and blueish in the pale light that came from it. ‘We could wait here. Till the snow stops.’
Tommy shook her head as she shivered. ‘It might last for days. It will only get worse. We’ll have to walk for it.’
‘You’re right, of course. It’s a quarter of a mile. I’ll take the shovel and make whatever path I can. You try and keep us on track. We must go as quickly as we can, especially Molly.’ He turned in his seat so that he could see Barbara and Molly, quiet and frightened in the back. ‘We’re going to walk. Molly, you must stay close to your mother and right behind me. Tommy will have the torch. We’ll go as fast as we can because we can’t linger in this cold. Barbara, you must leave the cases here. We’ll get them tomorrow.’
Barbara nodded and didn’t demur.
She’s got pluck, Tommy thought. She must be terrified for Molly.
‘Let’s get on our way,’ Fred said with a smile. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for a hot cup of cocoa.’ He passed the torch to Tommy and opened his door. The furious wind burst in again, bringing a flurry of snow. ‘I’ll get the shovel and you all get out.’
Tommy pushed her door open with an effort and struggled out into the freezing darkness, sinking immediately down into deep snow. Thank goodness Fred told me to put on my boots. But Barbara and Molly were not so lucky, their shoes and stockings disappearing into the drift as they climbed out.
‘Follow me,’ yelled Fred, his voice fighting against the howling wind, and he struggled forward with the shovel, pushing what snow he could out of the way. Tommy hustled Molly and Barbara in front of her, so that they were sheltered as much as possible, and urged them forward.
‘Come on!’ she shouted, chilled to the bone by the biting wind. ‘We must press on as fast as possible.’ And she threw out the beam of the torch as far as it would go into the tempest.
Fred tried to shovel but it was almost pointless. Soon he concentrated on fighting a way through the drift with his body, using the shovel more as a machete to chop and loosen snow than to dig it. The others pressed on behind him, their eyes scrunched against the whirl of wind and snow.
But where is the house?
Ahead seemed only blackness, full of storm-tossed snow.
It must be near. Why can’t I see it?
She shone the torch as far forward as she could but there was nothing to be seen more than a few feet ahead. So she lifted the torch skywards and waved the beam upwards, then down, then up again. Every few feet, she did it again.
She could see Barbara shivering as she fought her way through the deep snow. ‘Mr Burton Brown!’ she yelled, thumping Fred on the back. ‘It’s Molly! She can’t go any further. She’s too cold and it’s too deep!’
Fred turned to her and saw Molly, rooted to the spot and shivering uncontrollably. ‘Tommy!’ he yelled. ‘You lead. I’ll take Molly.’ He lifted the little girl up into his arms, wincing slightly as he did, and Tommy plunged forward through the snow, taking the shovel.
I’ve never been so cold.
They seemed to have been walking for hours. She was exhausted, blinded by the snow, freezing to her marrow. But there was no way they could give up. They had to keep on. She could hear Fred grunting with effort as he carried the shaking Molly.
Could we really die out here? The possibility suddenly seemed closer than it ever had. Death was very near, she knew that. Life, it turned out, was fragile. Just a walk in the snow could snuff it out. And how long before it was a blessed relief to give up the struggle, and sink away from the cold and noise and fear into silence? Stop it! I mustn’t think that way. She fought against the shivering and the pain in her hands and feet. Come on, now, Tommy. Be sensible. Don’t think about such awful things. We really must get home. But where is it? Why can’t I see it?
She swung the torch beam back up into the sky and then she saw an answering flash. Two strong points of light suddenly came to life just a little way ahead. ‘There!’ she yelled. ‘We’re nearly there, come on!’
With new energy, they battled on, and the lights grew closer until Tommy saw that they were lanterns, put up on the gatepost pillars.
‘It’s the last push!’ she yelled, and then, to her great relief, she saw two figures bundled up in coats and hats, standing in the snow, waving torches desperately towards them.
‘Over here!’ yelled Gerry against the howl of the wind.
‘We’re coming,’ shouted Tommy as they struggled the last few feet along the lane. She was almost weeping with relief. ‘We’re coming. We’re home.’