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Ever since Mrs Blumfeld’s husband was killed, I’ve been worrying a lot about Dad. I didn’t before, but I am now, all the time. I keep thinking of him lying dead in the sand of Africa. I try not to, but the picture of him lying there keeps coming into my head. And it’s silly, I know it is, because I got a letter from him only yesterday, at last, and he’s fine. (His letters take for ever to come. This one was dated two months ago.) He never said anything about me being cross. In fact he sent his love to Tips. Dad says it’s so hot out in the desert he could almost fry an egg on the bonnet of his jeep. He says he longs for a few days of good old Devon drizzle, and mud. He really misses mud. How can you miss mud? We’re all sick of mud. It’s been raining here for days now: mizzly, drizzly, horrible rain. Today it was blowing in from the sea, so I was wet through by the time I got home from school.
Grandfather came in later. He’d been drinking a bit, but then he always drinks a bit when he goes to market, just to keep the cold out, he says. He sat down in front of the stove and put his feet in the bottom oven to warm up. Mum hates him doing it but he does it all the same. He’s got holes in his socks too. He always has.
“There’s hundreds of gum-chewing Yanks everywhere in town,” he said. “Like flies on a ruddy cow clap.” I like it when Grandfather talks like that. He got a dirty look from Mum, but he didn’t mind. He just gave me a big wink and a wicked grin and went on talking. He said he was sure something’s going on: there are fuel dumps everywhere you look, tents going up all over the place, tanks and lorries parked everywhere. “It’s something big,” he said. “I’m telling you.”
Still raining out there. It’s lashing the windowpanes as I’m writing, and the whole house is creaking and shaking, almost as if it’s getting ready to take off and fly out over the sea. I can hear the cows lowing in the barn. They’re scared. Tips is frightened silly too. She wants to hide. She keeps jogging my writing. She’s trying to push her head deeper and deeper into my armpit. I’m not frightened, I like storms. I like it when the sea comes thundering in and the wind blows so hard that it takes your breath away.
Mrs Blumfeld said something this morning that took my breath away too. That Daisy Simmons, Ned’s little sister, is always asking questions when she shouldn’t and today she put her hand up and asked Mrs Blumfeld if she was a mummy, just like that! Mrs Blumfeld didn’t seem to mind at all. She thought for a bit, then she said that she would never have any children of her own because she didn’t need them; she had all of us instead. We were her family now. And she had her cats, which she loved. I didn’t know she had cats. I was watching her when she said it and you could see she really did love them. I was so wrong about her. She likes cats so she must be nice. I’m going to sleep now and I’m not going to think of Dad lying out in the desert. I’m going to think of Mrs Blumfeld at home with her cats instead.
I just went to shut the window, and I saw a barn owl flying across the farmyard, white and silent in the darkness. There one moment, gone the next. A ghost owl. He’s screeching now. They screech, they don’t toowit-toowoo. That word looks really funny when you write it down, but owls don’t have to write it down, do they? They just have to hoot it, or toowit-toowoo it.
Saturday, November 13
1943 (#ulink_c5b5e326-d585-5287-9324-451e2182b517)
Today was a day that will change my life for ever. Grandfather was right when he said something was up. And it is something big too, something very big – I have to keep pinching myself to believe it’s true, that it’s really going to happen. Yesterday was just like any other day. Rain. School. Long division. Spelling test. Barry picking his nose. Barry smiling at me from across the classroom with his big round eyes. I just wish he wouldn’t smile at me so. He’s always so smiley.
Then today it happened. I knew all day there was going to be some kind of meeting in the church in the evening, that someone from every house had to go and it was important. I knew that, because Mum and Grandfather were arguing about it over breakfast before I went off to school. Grandfather was being a grumpy old goat. He’s been getting crotchety a lot just lately. (Mum says it’s because of his rheumatism – it gets worse in damp weather.) He kept saying he had too much to do on the farm to be bothered with meetings and such. And besides, he said, women were better at talking because they did more of it. Of course that made Mum really mad, so they had a fair old dingdong about it. Anyway in the end Mum gave in and said she’d go, and she asked me to go along with her for company. I didn’t want to go but now I’m glad I did, really glad.
The place was packed out. There was standing room only by the time we got there. Then this bigwig, Lord Somethingorother, got up and started talking. I didn’t pay much attention at first because he had this droning-on hoity-toity (I like that word) sort of voice that almost put me to sleep. But suddenly I felt a strange stillness and silence all around me. It was almost as if everyone had stopped breathing. Everyone was listening, so I listened too. I can’t remember his exact words, but I think it went something like this.
“I know it’s asking a lot of you,” the bigwig was saying, “but I promise we wouldn’t be asking you if we didn’t have to, if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. They’ll be needing the beach at Slapton Sands and the whole area behind it, including this village. They need it because they have to practise landings from the sea for the invasion of France when it comes. That’s all I can tell you. Everything else is top secret. No point in asking me anything about it, because I don’t know any more than you do. What I do know is that you have seven weeks from today to move out, lock, stock and barrel – and I mean that. You have to take everything with you: furniture, food, coal, all your animals, farm machinery, fuel, and all fodder and crops that can be carried. Nothing you value must be left behind. After the seven weeks is up, no one will be allowed back – and I mean no one. There’ll be a barbed-wire perimeter fence and guards everywhere to keep you out. Besides which, it will be dangerous. There’ll be live firing going on: real shells, real bullets. I know it’s hard, but don’t imagine it’s just Slapton, that you’re the only ones. Torcross, East Allington, Stokenham, Sherford, Chillington, Strete, Blackawton: 3000 people have got to move out; 750 families, 30,000 acres of land have got to be cleared in seven weeks.”
Some people tried to stand up and ask questions, but it was no use. He just waved them down.
“I’ve told you. It’s no good asking me the whys and wherefores. All I know is what I’ve told you. They need it for the war effort, for training purposes. That’s all you need to know.”
“Yes, but for how long?” asked the vicar from the back of the hall.
“About six months, nine months, maybe longer. We can’t be sure. And don’t worry. We’ll make sure everyone has a place to live, and of course there’ll be proper compensation paid to everyone, to all the farms and businesses for any loss or damage. And I have to be honest with you here, I have to warn you that there will be damage, lots of it.”
You could have heard a pin drop. I was expecting lots of protests and questions, but everyone seemed to be struck dumb. I looked up at Mum. She was staring ahead of her, her mouth half open, her face pale. All the way home in the dark, I kept asking her questions, but she never said a word till we reached the farmyard.
“It’ll kill him,” she whispered. “Your grandfather. It’ll kill him.”
Once back home she came straight out with it. Grandfather was in his chair warming his toes in the oven as usual. “We’ve got to clear out,” she said, and she told him the whole thing. Grandfather was silent for a moment or two. Then he just said, “They’ll have to carry me out first. I was born here and I’ll die here. I’m not moving, not for they ruddy Yanks, not for no one.” Mum’s still downstairs with him, trying to persuade him. But he won’t listen. I know he won’t. Grandfather doesn’t say all that much, but what he says he means. What he says, he sticks to. Tips has jumped up on my bed and walked all over my diary with her muddy paws! She’s lucky I love her as much as I do.
Tuesday, November 16
1943 (#ulink_bf81e76c-11d6-5262-9b38-a8f29ea640d9)
At school, in the village, no matter where you go or whoever you meet, it’s all anyone talks about: the evacuation. It’s like a sudden curse has come down on us all. No one smiles. No one’s the same. There’s been a thick fog ever since we were told. It hangs all around us, tries to come in at the windows. It makes me wonder if it’ll ever go away, if we’ll ever see the sun again.
I’ve changed my mind completely about Barry. That skunkhead Bob Bolan came up to me at playtime and started on about Grandfather, just because he’s the only one in the village refusing to go. He said he was a stupid old duffer. He said he should be sent away to a lunatic asylum and locked up. Maisie was there with me and she never stood up for me, and I thought she was supposed to be my best friend. Well she’s not, not any more. No one stood up for me, so I had to stand up for myself. I pushed Skunkhead (I won’t call him Bob any more because Skunkhead suits him better) and Skunkhead pushed me, and I fell over and grazed my elbow. I was sitting there, picking the grit out of my skin and trying not to let them see I was crying, when Barry came up. The next thing I know he’s got Skunkhead on the ground and he’s punching him. Mrs Blumfeld had to pull him off, but not before Skunkhead got a bleeding nose, which served him right. As she took them both back into school Barry looked over his shoulder and smiled. I never got a chance to say thank you, but I will. If only he’d stop picking his nose and smiling at me I think I could really like him a lot. But I’m not doing kissing with him.
Tuesday, November 30
1943 (#ulink_ba4a9482-ebe3-5fd8-b6cd-f89272d92250)
Some people have started moving their things out already. This morning I saw Maisie’s dad going up the road with a cartload of beds and chairs, cupboards, tea chests and all sorts. Maisie was sitting on the top and waving at me. She’s my friend again, but not my best friend. I think Barry’s my best friend now because I know I can really trust him. Then I saw Miss Langley driving off in a car with lots of cases and trunks strapped on top. She had Jimbo on her lap, her horrible Jack Russell dog who chases Tips up trees whenever he sees her. Mum told me that Miss Langley is off to stay with a cousin up in Scotland, hundreds of miles away. I’ve just told Tips and suddenly she’s purring very happily. It’s a “good riddance” purr, I think.
A lot of people are going to stay with relatives, and we could too except that Grandfather won’t hear of it. Uncle George farms only a couple of miles away, just beyond where the wire fence will be. They’re beginning to put it up already. He said that family’s family, and he’d be only too happy to help us out. I heard him telling Grandfather. We could take our milking cows up to his place, all our sheep, all the farm machinery, Dad’s Fordson tractor, everything. It’ll be a tight squeeze, Uncle George said, but we could manage. Grandfather won’t listen. He won’t leave, and that’s that.
Wednesday, December 1
1943 (#ulink_f2ed4c02-0d16-552e-b5ea-fcc903fedaef)
At playtime I found Barry sitting on his own on the dustbins behind the bike shed. He was all red around the eyes. He’d been crying, but he was trying not to show it. He wouldn’t tell me why at first, but after a while I got it out of him. It’s because there won’t be room for him any more with Mrs Morwhenna when she moves into Kingsbridge next week. He likes her a lot and now he has nowhere to go. So, to make him feel better, and because of what he had done for me the other day with Skunkhead, I said he could come home with me and play after school, so long as he didn’t pick his nose. He perked up after that, and he was even chirpier when he saw the cows and the sheep. And when he saw Dad’s Fordson tractor he went loopy. It was like he’d been given a new toy of his own to play with. I couldn’t get him off it. Grandfather took him off around the farm, letting him steer the tractor – which wasn’t fair because he’s never let me do that.
By the time they came back they were both of them as happy as larks. I haven’t heard Grandfather laugh so much in ages. Barry tucked into Mum’s cream sponge cake, slice after slice of it, and all the time he never stopped talking about the tractor and the farm (and no one told him not to talk with his mouth full, which wasn’t fair either because Mum’s always ticking me off for that). He’d have scoffed the lot if Mum hadn’t taken it away. He still smiles at me, but I don’t mind so much now. In fact I quite like it really.
Afterwards, when we were walking together down the lane to the farm gate, he seemed suddenly down in the dumps. He hardly said a word all the way. Then suddenly he just blurted it out. “I could come and stay,” he said. “I wouldn’t be a nuisance, honest. I wouldn’t pick my nose, honest.” I couldn’t say no, but I didn’t want to say yes, not exactly. I mean, it would be like having a brother in the house. I’d never had a brother and I wasn’t sure I wanted one, even if Barry was my best friend now, sort of. So I said maybe. I said I’d ask. And I did, at supper time. Grandfather didn’t even have to think about it. “The lad needs a home, doesn’t he?” he said. “We’ve got a home. He needs feeding. We’ve got food. We should have had one of those evacuee children before, but I never liked townies much till now. This one’s all right though. He’s a good lad. Besides, it’ll be good to have a boy about the place. Be like the old days, when your father was a boy. You tell him he can come.”
He never asked me what I thought, never asked Mum. He just said yes. It took me so much by surprise that I wasn’t ready for it, and neither was Mum. So it looks as if I’m going to have a sort of brother living with us, whether I like it or not. Mum came in a minute ago and sat on my bed. “Do you mind about Barry?” she asked me.
“He’s all right, I suppose,” I told her. And he is too, except when he’s picking his nose of course.
“One thing’s for sure, it’ll make Grandfather happier,” Mum said. “And if he’s happier, then maybe it’ll be easier to talk him into leaving, into moving to Uncle George’s place. They’re going to move us out, you know, Lily. One way or another, they’re going to do it.” She gave me a good long cuddle tonight. She hasn’t done that for ages. I think she thinks I’m too old for it or something, but I’m not.
I haven’t had my nightmare about Dad for a long time now, which is good. But I haven’t thought much about him either, which is not so good.
Wednesday, December 15
1943 (#ulink_c87a8987-8fe3-5334-a3d7-d0cf01904216)
Barry moved in this afternoon. He walked home with me from school carrying his suitcase. He skipped most of the way. He’s sleeping in the room at the end of the passage. Grandfather says that’s where Dad always used to sleep when he was a boy. Straight after tea Grandfather took him out to feed the cows. From the look on Barry’s face when he came back I’m sure he thinks he’s in heaven. Like he says, there’s no tractors in London, no cows, no sheep, no pigs. He’s already decided he likes the sheep best. And he likes mud too, and he likes rolling down hills and getting his coat covered in sheep poo. He told Mum that brown’s his favourite colour because he likes mud, and sausages. I learnt a little bit more about him today – he tells Mum more than he tells me. But I listen. He didn’t say much about his dad of course, but his mum works on the buses in London, a “clippy”, he says – that’s someone who sells the tickets. That’s about all I know about him so far, except that he twiddles his hair when he’s upset and he doesn’t like cats because they smile at him. He’s a good one to talk. He’s always smiling at me. If he’s living with us, he’d better be nice to Tips, that’s all I can say. He twiddles his hair a lot at school. I’ve noticed it in class, especially when he’s doing his writing. He can’t do his handwriting very well. Mrs Blumfeld tries to help him with his letters and his spelling but he still keeps getting everything back to front. (I think he’s frightened of them – of letters, I mean.) He’s good with numbers though. He doesn’t have to use his fingers at all. He does it all in his head, which I can’t do.
Grandfather’s still telling everyone he’s not going to be moved out. Lots of people have had a go at persuading him, the vicar, Doctor Morrison, even Major Tucker came to see us from the Manor House. But Grandfather won’t budge. He just carries on as if nothing is happening. Half the village has moved out now, including Farmer Gent next door. I saw the last of his machinery being taken away yesterday. All his animals have gone already. They went to market last week. His farmhouse is empty. Usually I can see a light or two on in there from my window, but not any more. It’s dark now, pitch black. It’s like the house has gone too.
We see more and more American soldiers and lorries coming into the village every day. Grandfather’s turning a blind eye to all of it. Barry’s out with him now. They’ve gone milking. I saw them go off together a while ago, stomping across the yard in their wellies. Barry looked like he’d been doing it all his life, as if he’d always lived here, as if he was Grandfather’s grandson. To tell the truth I feel a little jealous. No, that’s not really true. I feel a lot jealous. I’ve often thought Grandfather wanted me to be a boy. Now I’m sure of it.
Thursday, December 16
1943 (#ulink_fd8904b9-b12a-5a6e-b52b-b66e44eddb8a)
When school ends tomorrow it’ll be the end of term and that’s four days earlier than we thought. We’ve got four days’ extra holiday. Hooray! Yippee! That’s because they’ve got to move out all the desks, the blackboard, the bookshelves, everything, down to the last piece of chalk. Mrs Blumfeld told us the American soldiers will be coming tomorrow to help us move out. We’ll be going to school in Kingsbridge after Christmas. There’ll be a bus to take us in because it’s too far to walk. And Mrs Blumfeld said today that she’ll go on being our teacher there. We all cheered and we meant it too. She’s the best teacher I’ve ever had, only sometimes I still don’t exactly understand her because of how she speaks. Because she’s from Holland we’ve got lots of pictures of Amsterdam on the wall. They’ve got canals instead of roads there. She’s put up two big paintings, both by Dutchmen, one of an old lady in a hat by a painter called Rembrandt (that’s funny spelling, but it’s right), and one of colourful ships on a beach by someone else. I can’t remember his name, I think it’s Van something or other. I was looking at that one today while we were practising carols. We were singing I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In, and there they were up on the wall, all these ships. Funny that. I don’t really understand that carol. What’s three ships sailing in got to do with the birth of Jesus? I like the tune though. I’m humming it now as I write.
We all think she’s very brave to go on teaching us like she has after her husband was drowned. Everyone else in the village likes her now. She’s always out cycling in her blue headscarf, ringing her bell and waving whenever she sees us. I hope she doesn’t remember how mean I was to her when she first came. I don’t think she can do because she chose me to sing a solo in the carol concert, the first verse of In the Bleak Midwinter. I practise all the time: on the way home, out in the fields, in the bath. Barry says it sounds really good, which is nice of him. And he doesn’t pick his nose at all any more, nor smile at me all the time. Maybe he knows he doesn’t need to smile at me – maybe he knows I like him. My singing sounds really good in the bath, I know it does. But I can’t take the bath into church, can I?
Saturday, December 18
1943 (#ulink_9f9a5a60-4da4-52b5-8a8a-d78947810c6f)
I love Christmas carols, especially In the Bleak Midwinter. I wish we didn’t only sing them at Christmas time. We had our carol concert this afternoon in the church and I had to sing my verse in front of everyone. I wobbled a bit on one or two notes, but that’s because I was trembling all over, like a leaf, just before I did it. Barry told me it sounded perfect, but I knew he said that just to make me happy. And it did, but then I thought about it. The thing is that Barry can sing only on one note, so he wouldn’t really know if it sounded good or bad, would he?
There’s only a fortnight to go now before we’re supposed to leave. Barry keeps asking me what will happen to Grandfather if he doesn’t move out. He’s frightened they’ll take him off to prison. That’s because we had a visit yesterday from the army and the police telling Grandfather he had to pack up and go, or he’d be in real trouble. Grandfather saw them off good and proper, but they said they’ll be back. I just wish Barry wouldn’t keep asking me about what’s going to happen, because I don’t know, do I? No one does. Maybe they will put him in prison. Maybe they’ll put us all in prison. It makes me very frightened every time I think about it. So I’ll try not to. If I do think about it, then I’ll just have to make myself worry about something else. This evening Barry and me were sitting at the top of the staircase in our dressing gowns listening to Mum and Grandfather arguing about it again down in the kitchen. Grandfather sounded more angry than I’ve ever heard him. He said he’d rather shoot himself than be moved off the farm. He kept on about how he doesn’t hold with this war anyhow, and never did, how he went through the last one in the trenches and that was horror enough for one lifetime. “If people only knew what it was really like,” he said, and he sounded as if he was almost crying he was so angry. “If they knew, if they’d seen what I’ve seen, they’d never send young men off to fight again. Never.” He just wanted to be left alone in peace to do his farming.
Again and again Mum tried to reason with him, tried to tell him that everyone in the village was leaving, not just us; that no one wanted to go but we had to, so that the Americans could practise their landings, go over to France, and finish the war quickly. Then we’d all be back home soon enough and Dad would be back with us and the war would be over and done with. It would only be for a short time, she said. They’d promised. But Grandfather wouldn’t believe her and he wouldn’t believe them. He said the Yanks were just saying that so they could get him out.
In the end he slammed out of the house and left her. We heard Mum crying, so we went downstairs. Barry made her a cup of tea, and I held her hands and told her it would be all right, that I was sure Grandfather would give in and go in the end. But I was just saying it. He won’t go, not of his own accord anyway, not in a million years. They’ll have to carry him out, and, like Mum said, when they do it will break his heart.
Thursday, December 23
1943 (#ulink_ecef4300-420b-5ce0-a5ba-705a5336799f)
Letter from Dad to all of us, wishing us a happy Christmas. He says he’s in Italy now, and it’s nothing but rain and mud and you go up one hill and there’s always another one ahead of you, but that at least each hill brings him nearer home. We’d just finished reading it at breakfast when there was a knock on the door. It was Mrs Blumfeld. She was bringing her Christmas card, she said. Mum asked her in. She was all red in the face and breathless from her cycling. It seemed so strange having her here in the house. She didn’t seem like our teacher at all, more like a visiting aunt. Tips was up on her lap as soon as she’d sat down. She sipped her tea and said how nice Tips was, even when she was sharpening her claws on her knees.
Then suddenly she looked across at Grandfather. I don’t remember everything she said, but it was something like this. “You and me, Mr Tregenza,” she said, “I think we have so much – how do you say it in English? – in common.” Grandfather looked a bit flummoxed (good word that). “They tell me you are the only one in the village who won’t leave. I would be just like you, I think. I loved our home in Holland, in Amsterdam. It is where I grew up. All I loved was in our home. But we had to leave; we could do nothing else. There was no choice for us because the Germans were coming. They were invading our country. We did what we could to stop them but it was no good. There were too many tanks and planes. They were too strong for us. My husband, Jacobus, was a Jew, Mr Tregenza. I am a Jew. We knew what they wanted to do with Jews. They wanted to kill us all, like rats, get rid of us. We knew this. So we had to leave our home. We came to England, Mr Tregenza, where we could be safe. Jacobus, he joined the merchant navy. He was a sea captain in Holland. We Dutch are good sailors, like you English. He was a good man and a very kind man, as you are – Barry has told me this and Lily too. They may have killed him, Mr Tregenza, but they have not killed me, not yet. They would if they could. If they come here they will.”
Grandfather’s eyes never left her face all the time she was talking. “That is why I ask you to leave your home, as I did, so that the American soldiers can come. They will borrow your house and your fields for a few months to do their practising. Then they can go across the sea and liberate my people and my country, and many other countries too. This way the Germans will never come here, never march in your streets. This way my people will not suffer any longer. I know it is hard, Mr Tregenza, but I ask you to do this for me, for my husband, for my country – for your country too. I think you will, because I know you have a good heart.”
I could see Grandfather’s eyes were full of tears. He got up, shrugged on his coat and pulled on his hat without ever saying a word. At the door he stopped and turned around. Then all he said was, “I’ll say one thing, missus. I wish I’d had a teacher like you when I was a little ‘un.” Then he went out and Barry ran out after him, and we were left there looking at one another in silence.
Mrs Blumfeld didn’t stay long after that, and we didn’t see Grandfather and Barry again until they came back for lunch. Grandfather was washing his hands in the sink when he suddenly said that he’d been thinking it over and that we could all start packing up after lunch, that he’d begin moving the sheep over to Uncle George’s right away, and he’d be needing both Barry and me to give him a hand. Then very quietly he said: “Just so long as we can come back afterwards.”
“We will, I promise,” Mum told him, and she went over to hug him. He cried then. That was the first time I’ve ever seen Grandfather cry.
Saturday, December 25
1943 (#ulink_33cbf3d7-8639-519f-9c75-42397e51634a)
Christmas Day. There’s no point in pretending this was a happy Christmas. We tried to make the best of it. We had decorations everywhere as usual and a nice Christmas tree. We had our stockings all together in Grandfather’s bed. But Dad wasn’t there. Mum missed him a lot and so did I. Barry was homesick too and Grandfather was really down in the dumps all day and grumpy about moving. We had roast chicken for lunch, which did make everyone feel a little happier. I found a silver threepenny bit in the Christmas pudding and Barry found one too, so that made him forget he was homesick, for a while anyway. We all gave Grandfather a hand with the evening milking to cheer him up, and it worked, but not for long. There’s only a week to go now before we have to have everything out of here. It’s all Grandfather can think about. The house is piled high with tea chests and boxes. The curtains and lamp shades are all down, most of the crockery is already packed. We may have the Christmas decorations up, but it doesn’t feel at all like Christmas.
For my present I got a pair of red woolly gloves that Mum had knitted specially and secretly, and Barry had a navy blue scarf which he wears all the time, even at meal times. Mum didn’t knit that, she didn’t have time. We all went off to church this evening. It’s the last time we’ll be doing that for a long while. They’re going to empty it of all its precious things – stained glass windows, candlesticks, benches – in case they get damaged. The American soldiers are coming to take it all away. They’ll be putting sandbags around everything that’s too heavy to move, so that everything will be protected as much as possible. That’s what the vicar told us – he also said they’ll be needing all the help they can get. They’re starting to empty the church tomorrow. Mum says we’ve all got to be there to lend a hand.
I gave Tips some cold chicken this evening for her Christmas supper. She licked the plate until it was shiny clean. She’s a bit upset, I think. She knows something’s up. She can see it for herself and she can feel it too. I think she’s unhappy because she knows we’re unhappy.
I’m getting a bit fed up with Uncle George already, and we haven’t even moved in with him yet. All he talks about is the war: the Germans this and the Russians that. He sits there with his ear practically glued to the radio, tutting and huffing at the news. Even today, on Christmas Day, he has to go on and on about how we should “bomb Germany to smithereens, because of all they’ve done to us”! Then once he got talking about it, everyone was talking about it, arguing about it. So I came up to bed and left them to it. It’s supposed to be a day of peace and goodwill towards all men. And all they can talk about is the war. It makes me so sad, and I shouldn’t be sad on Christmas Day. But now I am. Happy Christmas, Dad.
PS Just after I finished my diary I heard Barry crying in his room, so I went to see him. He didn’t want to tell me at first. Then he said he was just a bit homesick, missing his mum, he said. And his dad – mostly his dad. What could I say? My dad is alive and I’m living in my own home, going to my own school. Then I had an idea. “Shall we say Happy Christmas to the cows?” I said. He cheered up at once. So we crept downstairs in our dressing gowns and slippers, and ran out to the barn. They were all lying down in the straw grunting and chewing the cud, their calves curled up asleep beside them. Barry crouched down and stroked one of them, who sucked his finger until he giggled and pulled it out. We were walking back across the yard when he told me. “I hate the radio,” he said suddenly. “It’s always about the war, and the bombing raids, and that’s when I think of Mum most and miss her most. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want to be an orphan.”
I held his hand and squeezed it. I was too upset to say anything.
Sunday, December 26
1943 (#ulink_0c5c7cc3-cb4f-5c39-8c73-e967b42e6af2)
I’ve had the strangest day and the happiest day for a long time. I met someone who’s the most different person I’ve ever met. He’s different in every way. He looks different, he sounds different, he is different. And, best of all, he’s my friend.
We were supposed to be helping to move things out of the church, but mostly we were just watching, because the Yanks were doing it all for us. Grandfather’s right: they do chew gum a lot. But they’re very happy-looking, always laughing and joking around. Some of them were carrying sandbags into the church, whilst others were carrying out the pews and chairs, hymn books and kneelers.
Suddenly I recognised one of them. He was the same black soldier I had seen in the jeep a while ago. And he recognised me too. “Hi there! How you doing?” he said. I never saw anyone smile like he did. His whole face lit up with it. He looked too young to be a soldier. He seemed so pleased to see me there, someone he recognised. He bent down so that his face was very close to mine. “I got three little sisters back home in Atlanta – that’s in Georgia and that’s in the United States of America, way across the sea,” he said. “And they’s all pretty, just like you.”
Then another soldier came along – I think he was a sergeant or something because he had lots of stripes on his arm, upside-down ones, not like our soldiers’ stripes at all. The sergeant told him he should be carrying sandbags, not chatting to kids. So he said, “Yessir.” Then he went off, smiling back at me over his shoulder. The next time I saw him he was coming past me with a sandbag under each arm. He stopped right by me and looked down at me from very high up. “What do you call yourself, girl?” he asked me. So I told him. Then he said, “I’m Adolphus T. Madison. (That’s T for Thomas.) Private First Class, US Army. My friends call me Adie. I’m mighty pleased to make your acquaintance, Lily. A ray of Atlanta sunshine, that’s what you are, a ray of Atlanta sunshine.”
No one has ever talked to me like that before. He looked me full in the eye as he spoke, so I knew he meant every word he said. But the sergeant shouted at him again and he had to go.
Then Barry came along, and for the rest of the morning we stood at the back of the church watching the soldiers coming and going, all of them fetching and carrying sandbags now, and Adie would give me a great big grin every time he went by. The vicar was fussing about them like an old hen, telling the Yank soldiers they had to be more careful, particularly when they were sandbagging the font. “That font’s very precious, you know,” said the vicar. I could see they didn’t like being pestered, but they were all too polite and respectful to say anything. The vicar kept on and on nagging at them. “It’s the most precious thing in the church. It’s Norman, you know, very old.” A couple of Yanks were just coming past us with more sandbags a few moments later when one of them said, “Who is this old Norman guy, anyway?”
After that Barry and me couldn’t stop ourselves giggling. The vicar told us we shouldn’t be giggling in church, so we went outside and giggled in the graveyard instead.
We told Grandfather and Mum about that when we got back this evening and they laughed so much they nearly cried. It’s been a happy, happy day. I hope Adie doesn’t get killed in the war. He’s so nice. I’m going to pray for him tonight, and for Dad too.
Tips has just brought in a dead mouse and dropped it at my feet. She knows how much I hate mice, dead or alive. I really wish she wouldn’t do it. She’s sitting there, licking her lips and looking so pleased with herself. Sometimes I think I understand why Barry doesn’t like cats.
Monday, December 27
1943 (#ulink_66d242a6-9a33-54fb-a8f6-605ad904c712)
It’s my very last night in my own bedroom. Until now I don’t think I thought it would ever really happen, not to us, not to me. It was happening to everyone else. Everyone else was moving out, but somehow I just didn’t imagine that the day would ever come when we’d have to do the same. But tomorrow is the final day and tomorrow will come. This time tomorrow my room will bè empty – the whole house will be empty. I’ve never slept anywhere else in my whole life except in this room. For the first time I think I understand why Grandfather refused to leave for so long. It wasn’t just because he was being stubborn and difficult and grumpy. He loves this place, and so do I. I look around this room and it’s a part of me. I belong here. I’ll start to cry if I write any more, so I’ll stop.
Tuesday, December 28
1943 (#ulink_78845493-813e-510b-813a-e096b207375d)
Our first night at Uncle George’s and it’s cold. But there’s something worse than that, much worse. Tips has gone missing. We haven’t got her with us.
We moved up here today. We were the last ones in the whole village to move out. Grandfather is very proud of that. We had lots of help. Mrs Blumfeld came and so did Adie, along with half a dozen other Yanks. We couldn’t have managed without them. Everything is here, all the tea chests, all the furniture. Most of it is stored in Uncle George’s granary under an old tarpaulin. But the cows are still back home on the farm. We’ll go back for them tomorrow, Grandfather said, and drive them up the lane.
Uncle George has made room here for all of us. He’s very kind, I suppose, but he talks to himself too much and he grunts and wheezes a lot, and when he blows his nose it sounds like a foghorn. He’s very dirty and scruffy and untidy, which Mum doesn’t like, and I think he’s a bit proud too. I was only trying to be polite, because Mum said I should be, when I asked him which chair was his before I sat down. Uncle George said: “They’m all my chairs Lil.” (I wish he wouldn’t call me Lil, only Mum and Dad call me that.) He was laughing as he said it, but he meant it, I know he did. I think it’s because he’s Mum’s eldest brother that he’s a bit bossy with us. He keeps saying Dad shouldn’t have gone off to the war and left her on her own. That’s what I think too, but I don’t like it when Uncle George says it. Anyway, she’s not on her own. She’s got Grandfather and she’s got me.
.Mum says I have to be very patient with him because he’s a bachelor, which means that he’s lived on his own all his life which is why he’s untidy and doesn’t know how to get on with people very well. I’ll try, but it’s not going to be easy. And what’s more, he looks like a scarecrow, except when he’s in his Home Guard uniform. When he’s in his uniform he looks very pleased with himself. Grandfather says he doesn’t do much in the Home Guard, that he just sits up in the lookout post on top of the hill. They’re supposed to be looking for enemy ships and planes, but Grandfather says they just have a good natter and a smoke.
I miss my room at home already. My bedroom here is not just cold, it’s very small, a bit like a cupboard – a cupboard I have to share with Mum. Barry’s in with Grandfather. It was the only way to fit us all in. Mum and me have to share a bed too, but I don’t mind that. We’ll cuddle up. She’ll keep me warm! I haven’t got a table, so I’m writing this sitting up in bed with my diary on my knees.
I wish Tips was here. I miss her and I’m really worried about her. She ran off when everyone came to the house to carry the furniture out. I called and called, but she didn’t come. I’m trying my best not to be worried. Mum says she’s just gone off on her wanders somewhere, that she’ll come back when the house is quiet again. She’s sure she’ll be there when we go to fetch the animals tomorrow. She keeps saying there are still three days to go before they close the farm off, but I can’t stop thinking that after that we won’t be allowed back for six months or even more. What if Tips isn’t there tomorrow? What if we can’t find her?
Barry’s happier than ever, because he’s got two farmers to work with now, and two tractors. But what’s more surprising is that Grandfather is happy too. I thought he was going to be very sad when we left home. I was there when he locked the door and slipped the key into his waistcoat pocket. He stood looking up at the house for some moments. He even tried to smile. But he never said anything. He just took my hand and Barry’s, and we all walked off without looking back. He made himself at home in Uncle George’s kitchen right away. He’s got his feet in the oven already, which you can see Uncle George doesn’t like. But Grandfather’s much older than he is, so Uncle George will just have to put up with it, won’t he?
Oh yes, I forgot. This afternoon Adie introduced me to his friend Harry, while they were carrying out our kitchen table. He’s from Atlanta too, and he’s black like Adie is. They’re both quite difficult to understand sometimes because they speak English differently from us. Adie does most of the talking. “Harry’s like my brother, Lily, not my brother brother, if you get my meaning, just my friend. Like twins, ain’t we, Harry? Always on the lookout for one another. Harry and me, we growed up together, same street, same town. We was born on the same day too – 25
November. Both of us is eighteen, but I’m the oldest by six hours – that’s what our mamas told us, and they should know I reckon. Ain’t that right Harry?” Harry just smiled at me and nodded. “Harry don’t say much,” Adie said, “but he thinks real deep.” The two of them worked together all day, fetching and carrying. They must be very strong too. They picked up Grandfather’s dresser all by themselves. No huffing, no puffing. They just picked it up as if it was light as a feather.
I keep thinking I hear Tips outside, but every time I look it’s Uncle George’s ginger tomcat mewing round the yard. I just hope Tips gets on with Uncle George’s cat. Tips doesn’t much like other cats. But if I’ve got to be polite to Uncle George, then she’ll have to be polite to Uncle George’s cat, won’t she? This time tomorrow Tips will be here and everything will be just tickety-boo! That word always makes me smile, even when I’m sad. So I’ll write it again: tickety-boo, tickety-boo. The lamp’s just gone out so I suppose I’ll have to finish now.
Thursday, December 30
1943 (#ulink_a0e5c6b5-b5e4-5bbf-8437-7206e5a8fa15)
I still can’t find Tips. I’ve been looking for her all day today – and all yesterday too. I looked in every barn, every shed. Grandfather opened up the house again for me and I went into every room, up into the attic too. I looked in all the cupboards, just in case she’d got herself shut in by mistake. Grandfather even climbed up a ladder to look in the roof valleys. I wandered the fields, tapping her bowl with a spoon, calling and calling, then listening for her. All I could hear were cawing crows and the sound of the wind in the trees and the rumble of a tractor engine in the distance. Once they’d driven the cows and sheep up the lane to Uncle George’s everyone came back to help me. Mrs Blumfeld went off to search the village on her bike, with Barry on the back. They didn’t find Tips, but they did find lots of Yanks. They were all over the place, they said, in lorries and jeeps and some of them in tanks.
Mum still says I’m not to worry. Grandfather says that cats have nine lives, that Tips will turn up as she always does, and it’s true she always has. But I do worry. I can’t think about anything else now except Tips. She’s out there somewhere in the night, cold and wet, hungry and lost, and I’ve only got one more day to find her before they close off the farm. I’m going to get up early tomorrow; Barry says he’ll come with me. We’re going to look and look until we find her, he says. I’m not coming back to Uncle George’s until I do.
Our farm looked strange when I went back today, so empty and silent: a phantom farm, a house full of ghosts.
Be there tomorrow, Tips. Please be there. It’s your last chance.
Friday, December 31
