Rule Britannia Read online

  Disturbed her, you little know… She’s sharpening arrows this moment below in the basement. Emma watched the lieutenant return to the stable block with reluctance, but she was slightly put off by the name Wally. One couldn’t imagine saying to Mad, “I’m going out with Wally tonight…”

  There was no question of Lieutenant Wallace Sherman coming in for drinks or offering Emma iron rations in the stables, because later that evening they heard continual coming and going between the main road and the stable yard. A couple of jeeps had now appeared on the scene, and the marines were evidently clearing up their equipment in preparation for moving off.

  “Good job too,” said Terry, peering out of the kitchen window into the dusk. “We don’t want them hanging about here any longer.”

  “They’ll not be going far,” said Joe quietly, “only down the bottom of the hill. Corporal Wagg told me there are two commando units in our district, and they’re taking over all of Poldrea sands and the docks as well. The sands are to be roped off, and they’re to requisition the bathing huts and caravans as living quarters.”

  “But what the hell for?” exploded Terry. “That Lieutenant Sherman said the state of emergency would be over by tomorrow.”

  “He didn’t tell me why,” replied Joe, “and I don’t for a moment suppose he knew.”

  “It’s the Communists, depend upon it,” said Dottie. “I expect they’ll be parachuted down from Russian airplanes dressed as nuns, as they did in the last war.”

  “I know what the Communists will do,” said Colin, who had suddenly emerged from the playroom where, so it appeared from the state of the wallpaper later, he had been teaching Ben to write. “They’ll swim in to Poldrea beach disguised as mermaids, lashing great rockets to their tails that are full of T.N.T. At least that’s what I would do, if I were a Communist.”

  Ben, who was clinging to Colin’s hand as usual, nodded his head vigorously in agreement, and to show he meant business pursed his lips to frame the dreaded Sh… Emma escaped just in time to spare herself hearing Dottie’s outraged cry and Terry’s shout of laughter.

  That evening, when she and her grandmother were thinking of going to bed, the telephone suddenly rang.

  “I’ll get it,” said Emma quickly. “It might be some sort of message from the stables, they could have fixed up a house-to-house line.”

  For lack of anything better to think about her mind had been full of the lieutenant. She tore through to the lobby where the telephone was installed. It wasn’t the lieutenant, it was Pa.

  “Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed, not sure whether to be sorry or relieved. “We were told the line wouldn’t be working until tomorrow morning.”

  “I got priority,” said Pa, “no problem at all.” Which was typical, of course. He liked to sound important. “Well,” he asked, “how have you weathered the crisis? I don’t mind telling you, things have been humming up here.”

  “I dare say,” said his daughter. “They’ve been humming down here too. Helicopters roaring overhead, soldiers, Americans, everywhere—we’ve even had them in the stable block, but they say they’re going tomorrow. Rumor has it they’ve taken over all of Poldrea beach and the docks as well.”

  “That’s right, that’s right,” said Pa, “a very sensible move, in the circumstances, nobody wants a lot of hooligans trying to upset the nation, not that they’d succeed. It’s wonderful news, isn’t it?”

  “What is?” Emma asked.

  “Why, the two countries forming a union. Should have happened years ago. Some of us have been advocating it ever since we boobed it in Europe. Now we’ve all got to make it work. There’ll be some dissenters, of course, but we can soon shut them up if they try to make trouble. Tell me, is Mad behaving herself?”

  “More or less,” said Emma guardedly. “I mean, she’s not done anything dreadful. We were all upset the first day because one of the soldiers shot poor Spry, Mr. Trembath’s dog, who happened to be loose.”

  “Oh well, if that was the only casualty, count yourselves lucky. These chaps can be trigger-happy, you know, and you want to take damn good care not to obstruct them when they’re on duty. I hope you’ve got that gang of yours under control.”

  “Yes, they’re being very good.”

  “Well, if I’m not under too much pressure up here I might slip down to see you all, though I can’t say when.”

  Emma wondered what the pressure could be. Floods of money either coming in, or going out of, the Bank of England, and Pa with his finger on the pulse. Her grandmother came into the lobby. “Vic?” she said, seizing the receiver from Emma.

  Mother and son started talking at once, neither listening to the other, both expostulating, both arguing, which was standard practice when they were on the telephone together.

  “I shall never forgive you,” Mad was saying. “Of course you knew all about it, and so did Jimmy Jollif, one of you should have warned me, and then we shouldn’t have been taken by surprise. Nonsense, you know how discreet I am, I wouldn’t have shouted it from the rooftops or gone round Poldrea telling everyone I met. What? I can’t hear a word you’re saying. No, I thought the Prime Minister was very sinister, but then he always is. And who are all these people who are going to create trouble? I don’t mind telling you, I shall be among the first.”

  They banged on, parry and thrust, like a couple of prizefighters. But time was precious and Pa’s five minutes of priority evidently ran out, for Mad, clamping down the receiver, made for the stairs and bed.

  “Vic will go on and on,” she said, never realizing that it was precisely what she did herself. “I can’t think who he gets it from, certainly not from me, and his father was so quick and to the point. He’s talking utter nonsense, of course. Such a ridiculous name too, USUK, make us the laughingstock of the world, but then we’ve been that for years. Em darling, if those roadblocks are down tomorrow you and I will go and do the shopping. I must find out how everyone is taking this business.”

  The following morning, soon after ten, Emma brought the car round to the front gate, and discovered, somewhat to her dismay, that Andy, Colin and Ben were ranged before her grandmother on the steps.

  “Must we take them too?” she asked.

  “Why ever not?” Mad, in full battle array, navy blue from top to toe, Mao Tse-tung to the life, told the boys to climb into the backseat. “I see the marines have left us,” she observed with a glance at the stable block. “Well, that’s a relief, at any rate. I hope they haven’t gone off with the manure.”

  She settled herself at the driving wheel, and Emma resigned herself to the inevitable in the seat beside her. Mad’s first motion as chauffeur was generally to crash into reverse. The boys were used to it, and invariably braced themselves for the jolt.

  “I feel as if we’ve been imprisoned for months,” Mad declared, as they swerved out of the lane at the top of the hill and onto the main road, taking the corner like the driver of a bobsleigh at St. Moritz. “Thank goodness there’s nothing on the road and we’ve got a clear run.”

  It was clear, fortunately for the bobsleigh team, until they reached the bottom of the hill, when Mad, with great presence of mind, slammed her foot on the brake and brought her craft to a halt almost immediately beneath a roadblock that barred further progress. A hut had been erected at the side of the road and beside it a soldier was positioned as sentry.

  “Your pass, please, ma’am,” he said.

  “What do you mean, my pass?” asked Mad, outraged. “Everybody knows me here, I don’t have to have a pass.”

  The soldier—not one of their stable block marines but American nevertheless—looked apologetic. “Sorry, ma’am, it’s a regulation, came into force this morning. Where do you come from?”

  “I live three minutes from here, at the top of the hill, the house called Trevanal. Your men have been quartered in my stables for the past five days.”

  The sentry stared. “I beg pardon, ma’am,” he said. “I was there myself last night, he
lping to remove the gear. I didn’t realize you were the lady. I’ll issue you with a pass.” He disappeared into his hut and came out again with a yellow sticker and two tickets. “It’s just a precautionary measure, ma’am. They are being issued to all the local inhabitants. This is for the car, I’ll paste it on your windscreen. These are the tickets for yourself and your companion.”

  “What about us?” asked Andy.

  The soldier smiled and shook his head. “No one has a pass under eighteen, son,” he said, “but it’s O.K. if you’re accompanied by an adult. Thank you, ma’am.”

  He lifted the barrier, and for the first time Emma could remember her grandmother shot into the right gear and accelerated, nearly cutting off the soldier’s foot. He backed swiftly into his hut.

  “I’ve never heard such utter nonsense in my life,” exploded Mad. “Who do they think they are, ordering us about on our own highway?”

  “Look,” said Colin excitedly, pointing to the sands, “they’ve got a barrier there too, and wire all round, and there are soldiers everywhere.”

  He was right. Poldrea sands, the delight of tourists in mid-summer and refuge of local inhabitants in winter as an exercising ground for dogs, had become an encampment over the weekend, with notices everywhere saying “U.S. Marines. No Admittance.”

  Mad brought the car to a standstill outside the Poldrea supermarket. She got out of the car and swept past the swing door, Emma and the boys behind her. The supermarket was full and the clatter and noise were deafening, like the bird house at a zoo. Inevitably, as on every occasion when there has been crisis, all wished to give an account of his or her own experiences during the weekend.

  “I was just sitting down to tea, and I said to Father…”

  “Sleep? I couldn’t close my eyes. And the roar…”

  “Takes me back to wartime, I said to Jim, seeing all these fellows around, and they say they’re going to be here weeks. It’s the threat, you see, of what might happen if they packed up. Jim says…”

  Mad swept purchase after purchase into her wire basket, and ended up beside the salesman who sliced the ham—when in doubt, Mad always said, one can live on cold ham. She fixed him with a cold blue eye. He was not a local man, but had been sent down from Bristol when the supermarket first started.

  “Well,” she said, “what do you make of the invasion?”

  “Invasion?” he queried, then smiled. “Now, you mustn’t call it that. I’ve been telling my wife it will be the saving of the country. We should have done it months ago, years ago, even.”

  “Oh, really?” asked Mad. “Why?”

  “Well…” He considered the matter as he sliced the ham. “It stands to reason, doesn’t it? They’re like our own people, aren’t they? We all speak English. It’s a wonderful thing for the English-speaking countries to get together. America, Australia, South Africa, ourselves… you won’t get the foreigners trying to push us around now.”

  “Aren’t we being pushed around at the moment?” said Mad. “I’ve just been issued with a pass coming down Poldrea hill. No one to be allowed to move without a pass.”

  “Security,” said the Bristol ham-slicer, and looking over his shoulder dropped his voice to a whisper. “You’d be surprised the things they say. Oh, not just that the continentals might be slipping over to make trouble, but our own people, folk like you and I, just biding their time to upset the Coalition Government, or make things awkward for the Americans. We must all be on our guard.”

  “Yes,” said Mad, “I think we must.”

  Emma, who had been keeping a close watch on the boys in case they slipped something into their pockets and not into the wire basket, followed her grandmother out of the supermarket. Mad was looking rather grim.

  “Where now?” asked Emma.

  “I think I’ll have a word with Tom,” said Mad. Tom was the fishmonger, and had fished the waters of Poldrea, man and boy, for fifty years. “Well, Tom?” This time Mad’s eye was not so cold. She was fond of Tom. “How do you like living in a state of siege?”

  “Don’t fancy it one bit,” was the answer from the gray-haired skipper of the Maggie May. “They’m turning the country upside down. And what’s more, tryin’ to boss we. I don’t hold with it. And what do they think they’m to out there in the bay—diggin’ for sand-eel?”

  Mad smiled. “We used to do it half a century ago,” she said. “They call it showing the flag. It’s to impress the natives.”

  Tom shook his head. “It might impress some folk,” he said. “It don’t impress me. I’ve lived too long.” He looked down at his flabby wares displayed on the slab. “Nothing here to tempt you, my dear,” he said. “Caught Wednesday and been on the ice ever since. They’ve lost their bite, like the speakers up Whitehall. Will you go to the meeting?”

  “What meeting?”

  “There’s notices posted round the town. Meeting at town hall seven o’clock. Questions from the general public to be answered by our Member and this Yankee colonel who’s in charge.”

  “Ah ha!” said Mad, and she turned to her granddaughter. “I’ve a very good mind to attend.”

  Emma’s heart sank. She knew exactly what would happen. Mad would make remarks under her breath, or not under her breath, the entire time people were asking questions. And the M.P. for the constituency was one of her bêtes-noires. She was a woman, for one thing, and had called at Trevanal a few years previously before the by-election, supremely confident that Mad would be willing to make large contributions to the party. She was duly elected, but she did not succeed in bringing Mad to the polls.

  “Two more calls,” said Chairman Mao to her followers. “The post office and the Sailor’s Rest.”

  The queue at the post office was almost as long as the one at the supermarket, but Mad never minded queues. She said it gave her a feeling of solidarity. Also she adored getting her pension. “It makes me feel rich,” she told Emma, and kept it inside a money box shaped as a pig, then doled it out to the boys as pocket money on Saturdays.

  Feelings about the state of alert over the weekend were mixed inside the post office. Some of the queuers, like the ham-slicing salesman in the supermarket, thought it a very good thing, others shook doubtful heads. The district nurse, who was sister-in-law to Mr. Trembath at the farm adjoining Mad’s domain, was one of the doubtful ones. More than this, she was angry.

  “They cut my phone,” she said to Mad, “and Mrs. Ellis’s baby was due, and when I tried to get across the valley Saturday night they wouldn’t let me through. Apologies, of course, this morning. Issued with a pass. Luckily the baby didn’t arrive, but if it had…”

  “It might have been born with two heads,” said Colin, who had a habit of butting in on adult conversations.

  “Have you been in touch with your brother-in-law?” asked Mad, ignoring the interruption.

  The district nurse nodded. “Spoke to him just now,” she said, then lowered her voice. “They’re very upset about poor Spry.”

  “I know,” said Mad, “so are we.”

  She left the post office with her wealth, and they proceeded by car to the Sailor’s Rest. Originally erected as a public house for seamen, dockers, clay-workers and locals about a century ago, it had transformed itself into a trendy pub for the two-car, colored-television types, who would drive over of an evening and swap wives. Mr. Libby, the landlord, had made a good thing out of it since the licensing laws had been relaxed, and positioned as the pub was, near to the sands, it would be interesting, Mad observed to Emma as they parked outside before picking up their crate of cider, to discover Mr. Libby’s sentiments. The pub was already filled with American marines and they turned as one man and stared at Emma, who felt relieved that her grandmother had remained in the car. The landlord, from behind his bar, seemed in high spirits.

  “Come for your cider, love?” he called. “I’m a bit pressed right now. Send Joe down for it later.”

  “We want it now,” said Emma firmly, and turned on her heel. She
could hardly believe her own voice. She might have been Mad herself. One of the marines whistled as she made her exit. In a few moments Mr. Libby emerged carrying the crate of cider. Mad put her head out of the car window.

  “Busy?” she asked.

  He winked. “I’ll say,” he answered. “With these chaps at my door I’ll do a roaring trade, better than I ever do with the tourists. I hope they stay forever.”

  He lifted the crate into the boot and waved his hand.

  “H’m,” said Mad as she turned the car towards the hill. “I can only count two for certain who are on our side, and that’s dear old Tom Bate and the district nurse.”

  “What do you mean, on our side?” asked Emma.

  “Well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” replied her grandmother. “The situation is rapidly becoming one of Them and Us.”

  5

  The town hall was packed. The notice on the outside said that householders only would be admitted, and this foresight on the part of the organizers had eliminated many of the possibly rowdier elements, and certainly the younger age group, who were being turned away disconsolate. Mad, sizing up the scene instantly, held on to Emma’s arm and began to limp.

  “I’m seventy-nine,” she explained to the attendant at the door, who failed to recognize her—he must have been one of the Member’s minions from Truro. “I can’t manage without help from my granddaughter.”

  The attendant waved them on respectfully, and pushing forward, the limp lessening with every step she took, Mad glimpsed the familiar faces of Mr. and Mrs. Trembath somewhere in the center of the crowd. In a moment she was tapping the farmer on the shoulder.

  “Let’s all sit together,” she said. “I want to talk to you anyway.”

  Jack Trembath was a big man with powerful shoulders, who used to wrestle for Cornwall against Brittany in his younger days. He was still under fifty, and even now would have thrown many a younger opponent. The four of them sat down near to the gangway in the middle of the hall, Mad with Emma on one side of her and the farmer on the other.