Voyage of the Sparrowhawk Page 6

  ‘Tell me everything,’ she said. ‘Tell me exactly. Is Sam coming back or not? I’m confused.’

  Ben took a deep breath. Where should he start? ‘After Nathan was killed,’ he said slowly, ‘the man at the farmhouse where he was staying sent all his things back, with a letter explaining how the field hospital where Sam was being treated was destroyed. He … he said he buried Nathan himself, in the Protestant churchyard in the village. Mercy and I wrote back asking for news of Sam, but he didn’t know – just that there were a lot of dead, and the wounded had been transferred to another hospital. Then later there was a telegram from the War Office …’

  ‘You mean a letter,’ said Lotti.

  ‘I keep telling you, there was no letter.’ It wasn’t fair to be irritated with Lotti, but Ben couldn’t help it. It wasn’t her – it was the whole situation. ‘There was a telegram. It said Sam was missing, believed killed. And that’s all.’

  ‘But then …’

  ‘He could be alive,’ Ben insisted. ‘Believed killed doesn’t mean actually killed. And I’d know, wouldn’t I, if he was dead? I mean, I’d feel it. Didn’t you, with your parents?’

  Lotti had had not an inkling, not a hint of a tingle of a premonition that her parents had died until one of the servants told her, but she understood how important it was to Ben to believe that what he said was true. And so she didn’t reply to his question but asked instead, ‘If Sam were alive, Ben, where would he be?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Ben’s tears were back, and in danger of spilling over. ‘In France? The hospital was near a town called Buisseau, by a river. I remember the river because Nathan wrote that they brought the wounded there by barge. He joked that he should have taken the Sparrowhawk over to bring Sam home. Lotti, are you all right?’

  Lotti had gone very still.

  ‘Buisseau,’ she said. She felt dazed and a bit sick, because she could see clearly – so very, very clearly – the time she had driven through Buisseau with her parents, on their way to stay with Moune at Armande. They had stopped there for lunch. She remembered because it was the first time she had ever drunk pineapple juice, and to this day still felt the astonishment that something so delicious existed. But now wasn’t the time to talk about pineapple juice and childhood holidays. Lotti, usually so easily caught up by emotion, knew instinctively that this memory went too deep, and that if she talked about the cool sweet juice and its attendant memories – a sunny café terrace in a dusty square, Mama’s white dress, Papa’s straw hat – they would sweep Ben and Sam and everything else away before them.

  Ben didn’t need memories, he needed practical solutions.

  ‘Let’s go and talk to Clara,’ said Lotti. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Clara’s gone,’ said Ben, and pulled Clara’s note from his pocket.

  ‘Gone to London, not sure when I’ll be back,’ Lotti read. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Gone, right when we want her!’

  ‘To be fair, she wouldn’t have known that when she left.’

  They sat in silence, feeling betrayed and defeated, as a gentle breeze began to rise.

  ‘We should run away,’ said Lotti.

  ‘But where?’ asked Ben.

  The breeze grew stronger. The woods breathed out the scent of bluebells.

  Where will we sail to, Lotti, on the ocean of blue?

  And just like that, Lotti knew.

  *

  ‘France?’

  Of all the outlandish things Lotti had ever said to Ben, this was the most outlandish yet.

  ‘Yes! To find your brother! If he’s alive …’

  ‘He is alive.’

  ‘But he hasn’t written.’ Lotti raised an appeasing hand. ‘No, don’t get angry, listen. Why hasn’t he written?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ben muttered.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ Lotti suggested. ‘I haven’t eaten all day and I need food to be able to think.’

  In the cabin, Ben made tea while Lotti searched the food cupboard.

  ‘Maybe Sam doesn’t want to come back,’ she said as she searched. ‘But that seems unlikely, because why wouldn’t he, when there’s you and Elsie and the Sparrowhawk? More likely he’s ill. Injured in the head, lying in some hospital just waiting for you to find him …’

  ‘How?’ asked Ben. ‘How will we find him, when he’s missing?’

  With a cry of triumph, Lotti produced the biscuit tin and extracted a handful of Marie biscuits.

  ‘We start with the site of the hospital that was bombed,’ she said with her mouth full. ‘We question the farmer Nathan stayed with. We visit the hospital where the wounded were taken. We ask every single person who works there if they’ve seen him. Do you have a photograph of him? Good. We show people the photograph. We don’t leave until we find someone who remembers him.’

  ‘It’ll never work,’ said Ben, but he felt his heart beat faster.

  ‘How do you know if you don’t try?’ Lotti began to pace about the cabin. ‘Ben, aren’t you tired of people telling you what to do? My whole life since my parents died, I’ve never got to decide. At school I couldn’t even choose when to brush my teeth, or read a book, or just do nothing and daydream. And Barton’s no better. Oh, I can get expelled and rescue Federico, but look at me now! Trying to hide him, about to be sent away again! And look at you! How long have you been waiting for Sam to come home? Months! And he’s not here! Well, I don’t want to let other people choose any more. It’s like what Clara taught us about. It’s democracy. I want to be the one in charge! I say we go and we find Sam ourselves! And after that …’

  ‘After that, what?’

  Lotti faltered. ‘Nothing.’

  She had been about to say, ‘maybe I could go and find my grandmother,’ but she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Moune’s broken promise, the letters which suddenly stopped … Lotti’s fear of Moune’s rejection was almost as great as her longing for her.

  ‘Skinner’s away,’ she continued. ‘I heard my uncle say. Do you know when he gets back?’

  ‘Wednesday,’ said Ben. ‘But Lotti, how …’

  ‘Wednesday,’ Lotti interrupted. ‘And Clara’s gone, doing whatever she’s doing, and my uncle and aunt are off to Scotland in the morning … I’m meant to go to school on Sunday … it’s perfect, Ben! We’ll be miles away before anyone notices.’

  ‘Lotti! How will we get to France?’

  She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Why, on the Sparrowhawk, of course!’

  Ben felt a pinch of disappointment. He’d known all along the plan was impossible.

  ‘We can’t take the Sparrowhawk to France,’ he sighed.

  ‘Why not? She’s a boat, isn’t she?’

  ‘She has a completely flat bottom and no keel. Honestly, Lotti, you might as well try to get to France in a bathtub. She’d sink.’

  ‘But Nathan said he should have fetched Sam in her …’

  ‘It was a joke.’

  ‘It’s worth a try!’

  ‘Not if we drown.’

  ‘We’ll be careful!’

  ‘Careful, in the Sparrowhawk, on the sea?’

  Lotti bit thoughtfully into a biscuit.

  ‘What will happen to the Sparrowhawk if we don’t go, Ben? What will happen to the dogs?’

  ‘…’

  ‘Will they let you keep Elsie if you go to an orphanage?’

  ‘…’

  ‘Because I don’t think orphanages allow pets.’

  It was madness. It was dangerous. It was … irresistible.

  ‘We’ll need provisions,’ Ben said. ‘Food, water, coal. I’ll need to check the Sparrowhawk over properly. And we’ll need a map. I’ve no idea how you get to France on a narrowboat, and I certainly don’t know what to do when we get there.’

  Lotti grinned.

  ‘We’ll need money,’ Ben went on. ‘I don’t have any, apart from my wages from the boatyard, and that won’t get us far.’

&nb
sp; ‘I can get money.’ Lotti’s eyes began to gleam. Federico, sensing something was up, began to yap. Elsie woke and thumped her tail.

  ‘And we’ll have to go soon, to get as far away as possible before they all come back. Clara’ll think it’s strange we’ve gone, and Skinner’s bound to come after us, and there’ll be hell to pay when your uncle finds out you’re not at school. I’ll have to tell John Snell I can’t work for him too – he’ll worry if I don’t turn up.’

  ‘We can leave tomorrow,’ said Lotti. ‘At night, so nobody sees us. Midnight! That’s a good time to start an adventure. What else?’

  ‘If we die, it’ll be your fault.’

  Lotti burst out laughing and took another biscuit.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lotti had been right: Uncle Hubert didn’t believe for an instant that Federico had got out of the coal cellar alone. For a moment the next morning it looked like the whole Escape to France plan was doomed.

  ‘Charlotte! CHARLOTTE! Where is the girl? Vera! The damn dog’s escaped. Charlotte did this, I know she did. CHARLOTTE, COME DOWNSTAIRS THIS MINUTE!’

  It was bad enough that Lotti should have disgraced the Netherburys in front of Lady Clarion. Now she had made her uncle look ridiculous in front of the lad come from Home Farm to shoot the dog. The lad had actually smirked on discovering Federico was gone, and remarked he hadn’t survived the war to shoot people’s pets. Hubert Netherbury had taken it as a dig.

  ‘CHARLOTTE!’

  Sally appeared, clean as a pin in her uniform, not a trace of coal about her.

  ‘Miss Lotti’s still locked in her room from last night, sir. Shall I go and fetch her?’

  ‘TELL HER I’M GOING TO WHIP HER!’

  ‘That bolt on the coal cellar’s been awfully loose lately, sir.’

  ‘SALLY, WERE YOU A PART OF THIS?’

  ‘Hubert, dear.’ Rescue came in the unexpected form of Vera Netherbury walking down the stairs, dressed for travelling in a tweed suit, a silk scarf of Isobel’s at her throat. ‘The taxi for the station is in the drive. Sally, please bring down the suitcases.’

  ‘TO HELL WITH SCOTLAND! I AM NOT GOING TO SCOTLAND UNTIL I’VE BEATEN THAT BRAT! AND SALLY, YOU’RE FIRED! FIRED, D’YOU HEAR ME?’

  ‘Hubert, please don’t speak to the staff like that. I know Charlotte has upset you dreadfully, but I for one am not going to let a naughty schoolgirl and a horrid little dog ruin my holiday. Sally, the suitcases.’

  The Netherburys and their luggage departed.

  Lotti waited a few minutes to be sure they had gone, and crept downstairs to the study.

  An oil painting hung behind Papa’s desk, of Moune’s house overlooking the river at Armande. Lotti stopped for a moment to contemplate it. ‘Soon,’ she said.

  Then, struggling a little because it was very big, she took the painting off the wall and revealed a safe.

  Years ago, Papa had taught her the code of the combination lock, and Lotti hadn’t forgotten it. ‘Just in case something happens to Mama and me,’ Papa had said. ‘It’s where all the important stuff is kept.’

  Well, something had happened and now Lotti needed the stuff.

  She held her breath as she turned the dial back and forth, until with a discreet click the lock was released and the door swung open.

  The safe contained documents and Mama’s jewels, all neatly stacked in pastel-coloured cases. Lotti rifled through the documents for her passport, slipped it into her pinafore pocket, then began to look through the cases. The princess pearls Mama had worn to lunch parties … the garnets, which went with summer dresses, the emerald earrings Papa had given her one birthday and the sapphires Lotti had loved because they matched Mama’s eyes. For a few minutes, Lotti was plunged into a world long lost, of parties and dinners, of spying on guests from the upstairs landing, of Mama sweeping into her room before dances to show off her frock, of perfumed kisses and the soft rustle of silk …

  But she had a job to do.

  From a slim puce case, she pulled a diamond necklace that Mama had never worn. ‘Because it is hideous!’ Mama had once laughed. ‘It belonged to my great-aunt Agatha.’

  The necklace was hideous, but goodness how it glittered when Lotti held it up to the light! How much could it be worth?

  ‘Lots, what are you doing?’

  Sally stood in the doorway of the study, her hands on her hips and a suspicious expression on her face. Lotti shoved the diamonds behind her back, then reminded herself that Sally was her friend.

  ‘Sal, where would you go if you wanted to sell a necklace?’

  Sally came into the room and stared at the pile of gems on the floor. ‘Sell a necklace?’

  How much should Lotti tell her?

  ‘I have decided,’ she said carefully, ‘not to go school.’

  Sally whistled.

  ‘I think,’ said Lotti, ‘it would be better for both of us if I didn’t tell you where I’m going instead.’

  Sally grunted, then, reluctantly, nodded.

  ‘So?’ asked Lotti. ‘Where would you sell a necklace?’

  ‘If you want quick money, you don’t sell it, you take it to a pawnbroker,’ said Sally. ‘But they won’t deal with you, you’re too young.’

  This was a blow, though hardly surprising. In a world controlled by adults, of course children weren’t allowed to sell their own jewellery. That would be too easy. Lotti would have to be clever.

  ‘Sally …’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say!’

  ‘I do. You’re going to ask me to pawn that necklace for you, and I’m not doing it. I don’t like your uncle and aunt, but I’m not stealing from them.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be stealing from them!’ explained Lotti. ‘Sally, it’s my necklace! I inherited it. It is one hundred per cent mine. And Sally … what if I said I’ll give you some of the money from the necklace? As a wedding present. Towards your pub!’

  Sally left, satisfied with the deal. Alone again, Lotti began to stack the jewellery cases back into the safe. Her eye fell on a new box, much smaller than the others, almost invisible at the back. Curious, she reached for it.

  ‘Oh!’

  Papa’s signet ring, a family heirloom, a dark red carnelian engraved with the head of a falcon, in a gold setting carved with lilies. Papa had worn it sometimes for luck – though not, obviously, on the day of the crash.

  ‘Well, we need luck now.’ Lotti took the ring out of its case and slipped it into her pocket. Then she finished putting the boxes back in the safe, locked it, and hoisted the painting back on to the wall, straightening it as best she could before hurrying out to prepare for the journey.

  While Sally was in town, Lotti went round the pantry, shovelling items into a rucksack. Jam, margarine, biscuits. Tins of soup, peas, peaches, sausages, beans. From the store cupboard she took soap, tooth powder, matches, candles. She felt no more guilt at taking these than she had the necklace – they were bought with her money, after all. The only thing she felt bad about was lying when she said goodbye to Zachy.

  ‘I’m going to school in the morning,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for everything you did for Federico. I didn’t tell my uncle you helped me, by the way. He thinks I just hid him in the grounds.’

  Zachy winked, crinkling his walnut face. ‘You’re a good ’un, Miss Lotti, just like your mama. I’m glad the little feller got away. And don’t you fret about Barton while you’re off at school. I’ll take good care of the place for you till you’re home, same as I always have.’

  Lotti hugged him and said, ‘You and Sally are the only things I’ll miss.’

  Back at the house, Lotti went into the room where the jumble pile was stored, and rummaged through it for a pair of shorts, some boys’ shirts, pyjamas, trousers and a jersey. She took them back to her room and packed most of the clothes into her rucksack, along with her toothbrush, a comb and her share of the money Sally had brought back from Great Barton for the necklace.

>   There were only a few things left to do.

  First, Lotti went into the bathroom. She stood before the mirror. In one hand, she held a lock of her long curly hair. In the other, a pair of sewing scissors. Snip, snip, snip … She cut her hair until it was as short as Ben’s. Then she kicked off her boots, stepped out of her pinafore, peeled off her blouse and stockings, pulled on the shorts and jersey she had taken from the jumble and slipped her feet into a pair of rubber soled shoes. She looked at the mirror. A strange spiky haired creature looked back.

  ‘Good,’ said Lotti, then she swept her cut hair into a pile and took it down to the kitchen to burn it.

  Nobody was going to tell her how to dress again, or pull her by the hair.

  In a final act of defiance, she marched into her aunt’s bedroom and took back her mother’s lovely shawl. Then she threaded her father’s ring on to a piece of string and hung it round her neck.

  By early evening, Lotti was ready, but she waited until it was dark before leaving, to reduce the chances of being seen. Shortly after nine o’clock, she shouldered her bulging knapsack, hugged Sally goodbye and set out across the garden of her childhood home.

  At the gate, she stopped for a final look back.

  ‘You and Sally are the only things I’ll miss,’ she had told Zachy, but it wasn’t true.

  She would miss everything.

  *

  Ben was ready.

  Working on the principle that the best lies are the ones closest to the truth, he had told John Snell that he was going to meet his brother, but kept vague about the details. John hadn’t pressed him, offering instead, in lieu of final wages, to fill the Sparrowhawk’s fuel tank. Ben had driven her to the boatyard in the afternoon after his shift, and John had given him a map as a goodbye present. Back at the Sparrowhawk’s mooring, Ben had worked out the route they should take – along the canal network to join the Thames in London, then along the Thames Estuary all the way to the sea, round the Kent coast and out across the Channel to Calais. It was a lot more sea than Ben had anticipated, and he didn’t like the look of the Thames either, which grew wider and wider as it snaked through London to the mouth of its estuary beyond. There would be tides to contend with, both on the sea and on the river … and there would be currents, and other boats, big ones, cargo ships and military vessels, which could mow down the little Sparrowhawk and cut her in half without even noticing …