Chapter 1 - Meeting
"Yes," said Tom bluntly, on opening the front door. "What d'you want?"
A harassed middle-aged woman in a green coat and felt hat stood on his step. He glanced at
the armband on her sleeve. She gave him an awkward smile.
"I'm the Billeting Officer for this area," she began.
"Oh yes, and what's that got to do wi' me?"
She flushed slightly. "Well, Mr., Mr. . . ."
"Oakley. Thomas Oakley."
"Ah, thank you, Mr. Oakley." She paused and took a deep breath. "Mr. Oakley, with the
declaration of war imminent . . ."
Tom waved his hand. "I knows all that. Git to the point. What d'you want?" He noticed a
small boy at her side.
"It's him I've come about," she said. "I'm on my way to your village hall with the others."
"What others?"
She stepped to one side. Behind the large iron gate that stood at the end of the graveyard was
a small group of children. Many of them were filthy and very poorly clad. Only a handful had
a blazer or coat. They all looked bewildered and exhausted.
The woman touched the boy at her side and pushed him forward.
"There's no need to tell me," said Tom. "It's obligatory and it's for the war effort."
"You are entitled to choose your child, I know," began the woman apologetically.
Tom gave a snort.
"But," she continued, "his mother wants him to be with someone who's religious or near a
church. She was quite adamant. Said she would only let him be evacuated if he was."
"Was what?" asked Tom impatiently.
"Near a church."
Tom took a second look at the child. The boy was thin and sickly looking, pale with limp
sandy hair and dull gray eyes.
"His name's Willie," said the woman.
Willie, who had been staring at the ground, looked up. Round his neck, hanging from a piece
of string, was a cardboard label. It read "William Beech."
Tom was well into his sixties, a healthy, robust, stockily built man with a head of thick white
hair. Although he was of average height, in Willie's eyes he was a towering giant with skin
like coarse, wrinkled brown paper and a voice like thunder.
He glared at Willie. "You'd best come in," he said abruptly.
The woman gave a relieved smile. "Thank you so much," she said, and she backed quickly
away and hurried down the tiny path towards the other children. Willie watched her go.
"Come on in," repeated Tom harshly. "I ent got all day."
Nervously, Willie followed him into a dark hallway. It took a few seconds for his eyes to
adjust from the brilliant sunshine he had left to the comparative darkness of the cottage. He
could just make out the shapes of a few coats hanging on some wooden pegs and two pairs of
boots standing below.
"S'pose you'd best know where to put yer things," muttered Tom, looking up at the coat rack
and then down at Willie. He scratched his head. "Bit 'igh fer you. I'd best put in a low peg."
He opened a door on his left and walked into the front room, leaving Willie in the hallway
still clutching his brown carrier bag. Through the half-open door he could see a large black
cooking stove with a fire in it and an old threadbare armchair nearby. He shivered. Presently
Tom came out with a pencil.
"You can put that ole bag down," he said gruffly. "You ent goin' no place else."
Tom handed him the pencil. He stared blankly up at him.
"Go on," said Tom. "I told you before, I ent got all day. Now make a mark so's I know where
to put a peg, see." Willie made a faint dot on the wall beside the hem of one of the large coats.
"Make a nice big un so's I can see it clear, like." Willie drew a small circle and filled it in.
Tom leaned down and peered at it. "Neat little chap, ent you? Gimme yer mackintosh and I'll
put it on top o' mine fer now."
With shaking fingers Willie undid his belt and buttons, peeled off the mackintosh and held it
in his arms. Tom took it from him and hung it on top of his greatcoat. He walked back into
the front room "Come on," he said. Willie followed him in.
It was a small, comfortable room with two windows. The front one looked out onto the
graveyard, the other onto a little garden at the side. The large black stove stood solidly in an
alcove in the back wall, a thick dark pipe curving its way upward through the ceiling.
Stretched out beneath the side window were a few shelves filled with books, old newspapers
and odds and ends, and by the front window stood a heavy wooden table and two chairs. The
flagstoned floor was covered with a faded crimson, green and brown rug. Willie glanced at
the armchair by the stove and the objects that lay on top of the small wooden table beside it: a
pipe, a book and a tobacco jar.
"Pull that stool up by the fire and I'll give you somethin' to eat." Willie made no movement.
"Go on, sit down, boy," he repeated. "You got wax in your ears?"
Willie pulled a small wooden stool from a corner and sat down in front of the fire.
Tom cooked two rashers of bacon and placed a slab of bread, with the fresh bacon drippings
beside it, on a plate. He put it on the table with a mug of hot tea. Willie watched him silently,
his bony elbows and knees jutting out angularly beneath his thin gray jersey and shorts. He
tugged nervously at the tops of his woolen socks and a faint smell of warm rubber drifted
upwards from his white sneakers.
"Eat that up," said Tom.
Willie dragged himself reluctantly from the warmth of the fire and sat at the table. "You can
put yer own sugar in," Tom grunted.
Willie politely took a spoonful, dunked it into the large white mug of tea and stirred it. He bit
into the bread, but a large lump in his throat made swallowing difficult. He didn't feel at all
hungry, but remembered apprehensively what his mum had said about doing as he was told.
He stared out at the graveyard. The sun shone brilliantly, yet he felt cold. He gazed at the few
trees around the graves. Their leaves were all different colors—pale greens, amber, yellow . . .
"Em you 'ungry?" asked Tom from his armchair.
Willie looked up startled. "Yes, mister," he whispered.
"Jest a slow chewer, that it?"
He nodded timidly and stared miserably at the plate. Bacon was a luxury. Only lodgers or
visitors had bacon, and here he was not eating it.
"Mebbe you can chew it more easy later." Tom beckoned him over to the stool. "Put another
spoon of that sugar in, boy, and bring that tea over 'ere."
Willie did so and returned to the stool. He held the warm mug tightly in his icy hands and
shivered. Tom leaned towards him.
"What you got in yer bag, then?"
"I dunno," mumbled Willie. "Mum packed it. She said I weren't to look in." One of his socks
slid halfway down his leg, revealing a large multicolored bruise on his shin and a swollen red
sore beside.
"That's a nasty ole thing," Tom said, pointing to it. "What give you that?" Willie pulled the
sock up quickly.
"Best drink that afore it gits cold," said Tom, sensing that the subject needed to be changed.
Willie looked intently at the fire and slowly drank the tea.
Tom stood up. "I gotta go out for a spell. Then I'll fix your room, see. Up there," he pointed to
the ceiling. "You ent afraid of heights, are you?" Willie shook his head. "That's good, or you'd
have had to sleep under the table." He bent over the stove and shoveled some fresh coke into
the fire.
" 'Ere's an ole scarf of mine," he muttered, and he threw a khaki object over Willie's knees. He
noticed another bruise on the boy's thigh, but said nothing. " 'Ave a wander round the
graveyard. Don't be scared of the dead. Least they can't drop an ole bomb on yer head."
"No, mister," agreed Willie politely.
"And close the front door behind you, else Sammy'll be eatin' yer bacon."
"Yes, mister."
Willie heard him slam the front door and listened to the sound of his footsteps gradually
fading. He hugged himself tightly and rocked backwards and forwards on the stool. "I must be
good," he whispered urgently, "I must be good," and he rubbed a sore spot on his arm. He was
such a bad boy. Mum said she was kinder to him than most mothers. She only gave him soft
beatings. He shuddered. He was dreading the moment when Mr. Oakley would discover how
wicked he was. He was stronger-looking than Mum.
The flames in the stove flickered and danced before his eyes. He turned to look for something
that was missing. He stood up and moved towards the shelves under the side window. There,
he was being bad again, putting his nose in where it didn't belong. He looked up quickly to
make sure Mr. Oakley wasn't spying at him through the window.
Mum said war was a punishment from God for people's sins, so he'd better watch out. She
didn't tell him what to watch out for, though. It could be in this room, he thought, or maybe
the graveyard. He knelt on one of the chairs at the front window and peered out. Graves didn't
look so scary as she had made out, even though he knew that he was surrounded by dead
bodies. But what was it that was missing? A bird chirruped in the garden. Of course, that was
it. He couldn't hear traffic and banging and shouting. He looked around at the room again. He
eyes rested on the stool where the woolen scarf lay. He'd go outside. He picked it up, and
wrapping it around his neck, he went into the hall and closed the front door carefully behind
him.
Between him and the graveyard lay a small flat garden. Along the edge of it were little
clusters of flowers. Willie stepped forward to the edge where the garden ended and the
graveyard began. He plunged his hands deep into his pockets and stood still for a moment.
The graveyard and cottage with its garden were surrounded by a rough stone wall, except for
where the back of the church stood. Green moss and wild flowers sprang through the gray
stonework. Between the graves lay a small, neat flagstoned pathway down the center. It broke
off in two directions—one towards a large gate on the left where the other children had
waited, and one leading to the back entrance of a small church to his right. A poplar tree stood
in the far corner of the graveyard near the wall with the gate, and another near Mr. Oakley's
cottage by the edge of the front garden. A third grew by the exit of the church; but the tree
that caught Willie's attention was a large oak tree. It stood in the center of the graveyard by
the path, its large, well-clad branches curving and hanging over part of it.
He glanced down at a small stone angel near his feet and began to walk round the
gravestones. Some were so faded that he could barely see the shapes of the letters. Each grave
had a character of its own. Some were well tended, with little vases of flowers; some were
covered with large stone slabs, while others had weeds growing higgledy-piggledy over them.
The ones Willie liked best were the gentle mounds covered with grass, with the odd surviving
summer flower peeping through the colored leaves. As he walked around, he noticed that
some of the very old ones were tiny. Children's graves, probably.
He was sitting on one Elizabeth Thatcher when he heard voices. A young man and woman
were passing by. They were talking and laughing. They stopped and the young woman leaned
over the wall. Her long fair hair hung in a single plait scraped back from a round, pinkcheeked
face. Pretty, he thought.
"You're from London, ent you?" she said.
He stood up and removed his hands from his pockets. "Yes, miss."
"You're a regular wild bunch, so I've heard," and she smiled.
The young man was in uniform. He stood with his arm around her shoulder.
"How old are you, then?" she asked.
"Eight, miss."
"Polite little lad, ent you? What's your name?"
"William Beech, miss."
"You can stop calling me miss. I'm Mrs.—Mrs. Hartridge." The young man beamed. "I'll see
you on Monday at school. I expect you'll be in my class. Good-bye, William."
" 'Bye, miss, Mrs.," he whispered.
He watched them walk away. When they were out of sight he sat back down on Elizabeth
Thatcher, tugged at a handful of grass and pulled it from the earth. He'd forgotten all about
school. He thought of Mr. Barrett, his form master in London. He spent all day yelling and
shouting at everyone and rapping knuckles. He dreaded school normally. Mrs. Hartridge
didn't seem like him at all. He gave a sigh of relief and rubbed his chest. That was one ordeal
he didn't think would be too terrifying to face. He glanced at the oak tree. It seemed a
sheltered, secluded sort of place. He'd go and sit beneath its branches.
As he walked towards it he tripped over a hard object. It was a tiny gravestone hidden by a
clump of grass. He knelt down and pushed the grass to one side to look at it. He pulled away
at the grass, plucking it out in great handfuls from the soil. He wanted to make it so that
people could see the stone again. It looked forgotten and lost. It wasn't fair that it should be
hidden. He became quite absorbed in this task until he heard a scrabbling noise. He turned.
Sniffing and scratching among the leaves at the foot of the tree was a squirrel. Willie
recognized its shape from pictures he had seen, but he wasn't prepared for one that moved. He
froze, terrified. The squirrel seemed quite unperturbed and went on scuffling about in the
leaves, picking up nuts and titbits in its tiny paws. Willie stayed motionless, hardly breathing.
The squirrel's black eyes darted in a lively manner from place to place. It was tiny, light gray
in color, with a bushy tail that stuck wildly in the air as it poked its paws and head into the
russet and gold leaves.
After a while Willie's shoulders relaxed. He wriggled his toes gingerly inside his sneakers. It
seemed as though he had been crouching for hours, although it couldn't have been more than
ten minutes.
The little gray fellow didn't seem to scare him as much, and he began to enjoy watching the
squirrel. A loud sharp barking suddenly disturbed the silence. The squirrel leaped and
disappeared. Willie sprang to his feet, hopping on one leg and gasping at the mixture of
numbness and pins and needles in the other. A small black-and-white collie ran around the
tree and into the leaves. It stopped in front of him and jumped up into the air. Willie was more
petrified of the dog than he had been of the squirrel.
"Them poisonous dogs," he heard his mother's voice saying inside him. "One bite from them
mutts and you're dead. They got 'orrible diseases in 'em." He remembered the tiny children's
graves and quickly picked up a thick branch from the ground.
"You go away," he said, feebly, gripping it firmly in his hand. "You go away."
The dog sprang into the air again and barked and yapped at him, tossing leaves by his legs.
Willie let out a shriek and drew back. The dog came nearer.
"I'll kill you."
"I wouldn't do that," said a deep voice behind him. He turned to find Tom standing by the
outer branches. "He ent goin' to do you no 'arm, so I should jes' drop that if I was you."
Willie froze with the branch still held high in his hand. Sweat broke out under his armpits and
across his forehead. Now he was in for it. He was bound to get a beating now. Tom came
towards him, took the branch firmly from his hand and lifted it up. Willie automatically flung
his arm across his face and gave a cry, but the blow he was expecting never came. Tom had
merely thrown the branch to the other end of the graveyard, and the dog had gone dashing
after it.
"You can take yer arm down now, boy," he said quietly. "I think you and I 'ad better go inside
and sort a few things out. Come on." And with that he stepped aside for Willie to go in front
of him along the path.
Willie walked shakily towards the cottage, his head lowered. Through blurred eyes he saw the
tufts of grass spilling up between the small flat stones. The sweat trickled down the sides of
his face and chest. His armpits stung savagely and a sharp pain stabbed at his stomach. He
went through the front door and stood in the hallway, feeling the perspiration turn cold and
clammy. Tom walked into the front room and stood waiting for him to enter.
"Don't dither out there," he said. "Come on in."
Willie did so, but his body felt as if it no longer belonged to him. It seemed to move of its
own accord. Tom's voice grew more distant. It reverberated as if it was being thrown back at
him from the walls of a cave. He sat down on the stool feeling numb.
Tom picked up a poker and walked across to the fire. Now I'm going to get it, Willie thought,
and he clutched the seat of the stool tightly. Tom looked down at him.
"About Sammy," Willie heard him say. He watched him poke the fire and then he didn't hear
any more. He knew that Tom was speaking to him, but he couldn't take his eyes off the poker.
It sent the hot coke tumbling in all directions. He saw Tom's brown, wrinkled hand lift it out
of the fire. The tip was red, almost white in places. He was certain that he was going to be
branded with it. The room seemed to swim and he heard Tom's voice echoing. He watched
the tip of the poker spin and come closer to him and then the floor came towards him and it
went dark. He felt two large hands grip him from behind and push his head in between his
knees until the carpet came into focus and he heard himself gasping.
Tom opened the front window and lifted him out through it.
"Breathe in deep," Willie heard him say. "Take in a good sniff."
He took in a gulp of air. "I'll be sick," he mumbled.
"That's right, go on, I'm holding you. Take in a good sniff. Let yer throat open."
Willie drank in some more air. A wave of nausea swept through him and he vomited.
"Go on," he heard Tom say, "breathe in some more," and he was sick again and again until
there was no more left inside him and he hung limply in Tom's arms.
Tom wiped his mouth and face with the scarf. The pain in Willie's stomach had gone, but he
felt drained like a rag doll. Tom lifted him back into the cottage and placed him in his
armchair. His small body sank comfortably into the old soft expanse of chair. His feet barely
reached the edge of the seat. Tom tucked a blanket round him, drew up a chair by the fire and
watched Willie fall asleep.
The tales he had heard about evacuees didn't seem to fit Willie. "Ungrateful" and "wild" were
the adjectives he had heard used, or just plain "homesick." He was quite unprepared for this
timid, sickly little specimen. He looked at the poker leaning against the stove.
" 'E never thought ... No ... surely not!" he murmured. "Oh, Thomas Oakley, where 'ave you
landed yerself?" There was a sound of scratching at the front door. "More trouble," he
muttered. He crept quietly out through the hallway and opened the door. Sammy bounded in
and jumped around his legs, panting and yelping.
"Now you jes' shut that ole mouth," Tom whispered firmly. "There's someone asleep." He
knelt down and Sammy leaped into his arms lathering his face with his tongue. "I don't need
to 'ave a bath when you're around, do I?" Sammy continued to lick him until he was satisfied
just to pant and allow his tail to flop from side to side. Tom lifted him up and carried him into
the front room. As soon as the dog saw Willie asleep in the chair, he began barking again.
Tom put his finger firmly on his nose and looked directly into his eyes.
"Now you jes' take a rest and stop that." He picked up his pipe and tobacco jar from the little
table and sat by the stove again. Sammy flopped down beside him and rested his head on one
of Tom's feet.
"Well, Sam," Tom whispered, "I don't know nothin' about children, but I do know enough not
to beat 'em and make 'em that scared." And he grunted and puffed at his pipe. Sammy stood
up, wriggled in between Tom's legs and placed his paws on his stomach.
"You understand every blimmin' word I say, don't you? Least he ent goin' to bury bones in my
sweet peas," he remarked, ruffling Sammy's fur. "That's one thing to be thankful about." He
sighed, "S'pose I'd best see what's what." He rose and went into the hallway with Sammy
padding after him. He took some steps and placed them under a small square trapdoor above
him. He climbed up, pushed the trapdoor open and pulled down a long wooden ladder.
The ladder was of thick pine wood. It was a little over forty years old, but since his young
wife, Rachel, had died soon after it was made, it had hardly been used. A thick cloud of dust
enveloped his head as he blew on one of the wide wooden rungs. He coughed and sneezed.
"Like taking snuff," he muttered. "S'pose we'd best keep that ole ladder down fer a bit, eh,
Sammy?"
He climbed down and opened the door opposite the front room. It led into his bedroom.
Inside, a small chest of drawers with a mirror stood by the corner of the front window.
Leaning up against the back wall was a four-poster bed covered with a thick quilt. At the foot
of the bed, on the floor, lay a round basket with an old blanket inside. It was Sammy's bed,
when he used it, which was seldom. A blue threadbare carpet was spread across the floor with
bits of matting added by the window and bed.
Beside the bed was a fitted cupboard. Tom opened it. On the top two shelves, neatly stacked,
were blankets and sheets, and on the third various belongings of Rachel's that he had decided
to keep. He glanced swiftly at them. A black wooden paint box, brushes, a christening robe
she had embroidered, some old photographs, letters and recipes. The christening robe had
never been worn by his baby son, for he had died soon after his mother.
He picked up some blankets and sheets and carried them into the hall. "I'll be down for you in
a minute, Sammy," he said as he climbed up the ladder. "You jes' hang on there a bit," and
with that Sammy was left to watch his master slowly disappear through the strange new hole
in the ceiling.
Chapter One-Meeting
1) Why
did Tom give Willie a pencil?
2) Where
did Willie go for a walk?
3) How
is Willie Beech described in this first chapter?
4)
What did Tom spot on the boy’s leg?
5) Which
person did Willie meet on his walk?
6) Why
do you think that Willie fainted?
7)
Where were Tom’s wife and son?
8) Why
were the children being evacuated?
9) Why
did Willie pick up a branch?
10 What kind of
“home life” do you think that Willie Beech had in London?
