The Piper (3 page)

Daisy stirred and looked resentfully up at Peter, her blue eyes rimmed red from crying. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ It was the sixth time she’d asked him. Her blonde curls were all in a tangle and her tiny body seemed swamped in the heavy overcoat she was wearing.

He could only shrug his shoulders. ‘It shouldn’t be too much longer,’ he told her, but he had no idea if this were true.

‘I miss Mummy.’ Two large tears swelled in her eyes and trickled down her pale cheeks.

Peter knew how she felt, but he couldn’t allow himself to admit it to her. Deep down inside, he was scared too. It was the first time in his life he’d been away from his parents for more than an hour or so. ‘Think of it as an adventure,’ he told Daisy.

She sniffed and looked up at him unconvinced.

‘There’ll be trees and fields to play in. Animals, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He warmed to the theme, knowing how she spent so much time looking wistfully at pictures of animals in books. ‘Sheep … cows … maybe even deer.’

‘You think so?’

‘Of course. It’s the countryside, isn’t it? That’s what they have out here. Everyone knows that. Look!’ He pointed to the window and Daisy turned her head to see. Sure enough, the field they were passing was dotted with scores of white, woolly shapes.

‘Sheep!’ she exclaimed, as though she thought he wouldn’t know what they were. He had to admit to himself that he couldn’t remember ever having seen one before in the flesh. He’d been born and raised in the grey, smoky streets of Dagenham, and the few holidays the family had enjoyed had always been spent at the seaside, at Southend, where the only animals to be seen were seagulls and donkeys. For a moment, Daisy forgot the situation. She moved closer to the window for a better view and began to count the sheep as they passed by. She’d got as far as nineteen, when she stopped suddenly. Peter saw that in the field they were passing, a small white shape was lying slumped in the grass. A lamb. Around it fluttered dozens of black ragged birds, their beaks pecking frantically at the creature’s head. Even at this distance, Peter could see the two empty black sockets where the lamb’s eyes used to be. A few yards away, a sheep, probably the lamb’s mother, looked on helplessly.

Daisy turned away from the window with a gasp of revulsion and Peter put his arm around her. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he tried to assure her, but he knew how hollow that must sound. Her little shoulders slumped and she looked up at him, her bottom lip trembling. He could see she was close to crying again.

‘How long,’ she asked him, ‘before we can go home?’

Peter sighed. ‘Nobody really knows,’ he admitted. ‘But Dad told me he reckons he could be home by Christmas.’ He didn’t mention that Mum had added, in a grim voice, that this is exactly what they’d said in the last war, or the way Dad shot her a fierce look, as though warning her not to say any more.

Peter’s mind went back to last Christmas. It had been the best ever. Dad had managed to get two whole days off work and they’d had sticky dates to eat, some tangerines and even a banana each! Peter had been given a Dinky Toy, a tiny replica of a Rolls Royce, while Daisy had received a little black-faced doll, whom she called Eva and went everywhere with her. Even now, Eva was nestled safely in Daisy’s case along with her clothes, pyjamas and toothbrush.

‘What if it’s not over?’ Daisy asked sulkily. ‘What if it’s never over and we never see Mummy and Daddy again?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ he told her. ‘Of course it’s going to be over. No war lasts for ever. One side wins and the others have to go back to where they belong.’

‘But what if
we
lose?’

Peter didn’t have an answer for that. He was relieved when the train began to slow down and, with a great screeching of brakes, it finally pulled into a station. After a few minutes, they saw Mr Griffiths out on the platform, walking along the length of the train and beckoning to everyone, shouting that it was time to get off. Peter stood up and slid down the window so he could hear better. Mr Griffiths was telling everyone to gather up their bags, cases and gas masks and to prepare themselves for a long walk.

Nobody argued. Nobody asked questions. The world had changed and there seemed to be nothing for it but to do whatever they were told.

The station was called Rye. Peter thought it was an odd name and it brought to mind an old song he’d heard at school, something about ‘comin’ through the rye’. He had a vague idea that rye was another word for corn and the song had always brought to mind visions of great fields of the stuff, swaying in the wind, but for the moment at least there was only a small country station with a couple of platforms. The children were herded off the train and told to form themselves up in a neat line. Then a woman stepped out of the waiting room, a tall thin woman dressed in a long khaki raincoat and wearing a beret. Mr Griffiths announced that she was Miss Halshaw, the Billeting Officer for this area, who’d been sent to make sure that everyone ended up in the right place. He told the children to follow her and then placed himself at the end of the line to watch out for any stragglers.

They marched out of the station and onto a busy road, then were led through Rye itself, a strange, old-fashioned town with narrow winding streets and white-painted cottages. The place had the fresh tangy smell of the sea, which reminded Peter of the family’s occasional trips to Southend, but he couldn’t actually see any water from here. There were seagulls flying overhead, though, screeching dementedly at the new arrivals as though telling them to get back to where they came from. Arthur Hayes was coming in for quite a bit of leg-pulling as some of the other boys pointed out that wherever they were, it wasn’t Australia.

As he walked, Peter was aware of passers-by staring at the line of children, as though wondering what they were doing here. Hadn’t anybody told them to expect the evacuees? He wasn’t sure how far they walked, but it must have been a good thirty minutes before Miss Halshaw announced that they had reached their destination, a big wooden hut on the outskirts of the town. As they were shepherded in through the entrance, Peter noticed a sign beside the entrance, which announced that this place was a Friends’ Meeting House.

Inside, there didn’t seem to be anything in the least bit friendly about it. It was a scene of total chaos, every bit as crowded as the station had been, back in London. Miss Halshaw pushed her way through the hustle and bustle, waving sheets of paper and talking to anybody who would listen to her. Meanwhile, women from the Women’s Voluntary Service moved along the line of new arrivals, handing out brown paper bags. Peter looked in his and saw that it contained a tin of bully beef, a small packet of digestive biscuits, a stamped postcard (which he was told he should fill in and send home when he had ‘landed somewhere’) and best of all, a Kit Kat. He and Daisy wasted no time and unwrapped and ate theirs as they stood there, then started right in on the biscuits. After eating nothing since the lunch that Mum had packed for them, they were ravenous.

‘This is daft,’ Peter heard Arthur Hayes telling Roy Walters. ‘When I get home, I’ll tell my dad all about this and he’ll send them a letter they’ll never forget.’

‘That’ll scare ’em,’ muttered Roy.

After a little while, Miss Halshaw reappeared, looking rather harassed. She told the children to climb up onto the stage at the end of the room and form a row in front of the curtains at the back, so they could be claimed by people standing in the crowd. As he moved past, Peter heard Mr Griffiths saying heatedly to Miss Halshaw, ‘We were told that
every
child would have an appointed host. This is like a cattle auction.’

Miss Halshaw shook her head. ‘It’s more complicated than we’d hoped. Many of the people who originally agreed to take children have since been assigned others. I’m afraid this is really the only way we can do it.’

‘It’s most irregular! I don’t see how…’ The rest of Mr Griffiths’ words were lost to Peter as somebody pushed him towards the stage. He kept a firm grip on Daisy’s hand as they climbed the few steps. Then they looked down to see that rows of people were staring at them with interest, as though they
were
at an auction or something, just as Mr Griffiths had said. There was an uncomfortable silence, before a man in a flat cap and an overcoat pointed to Mark Watkins, a tall, dark-haired boy, and said, ‘I’ll take him.’

And so it began. One by one, the children were chosen. They had little option but to go obediently down the steps to their new hosts before having their details written down by Miss Halshaw. Peter held onto Daisy’s hand, wanting to ensure that everybody understood the two of them came as a package. Children all around them were being picked. Peter noticed that the youngest children went first and some of the bigger, older boys, whom he supposed would probably make good farm workers. But it was the girls who seemed to be most in demand and one by one, they were beckoned down from the stage and taken away. Pretty soon there were only a few children left on the stage and Daisy was easily the youngest of them.

Then Peter noticed a woman pushing her way impatiently through the crowd, a tall but heavy-set woman in a long grey raincoat. She had a pale face and a hooked nose that was made all the more noticeable by a large black mole on one side of it. Her black hair was tied back in a tight bun and she had piercing dark eyes, set beneath thick eyebrows that met in the middle of her forehead. She looked grim and rather forbidding. She scanned the row of children intently and then her gaze settled on Daisy, as though interested in her.

Peter looked hopefully around, wondering if somebody might be prepared to take the pair of them, but was met only by blank stares. Then the hook-nosed woman raised a hand and pointed at Daisy. ‘You, girl. How old are you?’ she asked, in a loud, oddly accented voice.

Daisy replied, her voice faint. ‘I’m s … seven, miss,’ she said.

The woman nodded, as if this was exactly what she’d wanted to hear. ‘I’ll ’ave that one,’ she announced, looking at Miss Halshaw and pointing at Daisy again, just to be sure there was no confusion. Daisy made a move to obey her, but Peter hung on tight.

‘No!’ he said, and a shocked silence fell over the room. Peter looked desperately at Miss Halshaw. ‘We have to stay together. I promised my mum.’

Miss Halshaw looked annoyed, as though this was an unnecessary complication. But then she seemed to consider for a moment and she shrugged her shoulders. She smiled at the woman. ‘Could you not take the two of them?’ she asked. ‘There’ll be an extra payment if you have the boy as well.’

The woman scowled. ‘I was told to get a young ’un. A girl. That’s all I know.’

Mrs Halshaw smiled distastefully. ‘Does the age matter that much? As you can see, there are still several boys who—’

‘It has to be a girl!’ cried the woman and she sounded annoyed. She scanned the rows of children, as if suspecting that another girl, on her own, might be hidden somewhere in their ranks, but her gaze kept returning to Daisy.

Miss Halshaw looked at Peter. ‘Are you sure you couldn’t agree to be separated?’ she said. ‘Perhaps just for a little while, until we can make the proper arrangements? It makes things very difficult when there’s two of you.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Peter fiercely. ‘I promised Mum.’ As if to emphasise the point, Daisy hugged him closer, burying her face against his stomach.

Miss Halshaw turned back to the woman. ‘Well, you can see they’re set on this,’ she said, almost apologetically. She turned to look at the rows of waiting people. ‘Perhaps there’s somebody else here who would be prepared to take
both
children?’ she asked.

But before anybody could answer, the woman stepped urgently closer to the stage, as though afraid that somebody else might get Daisy. ‘Both then,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll take ’em both.’ She beckoned impatiently to Peter. ‘Step down ’ere,’ she told him. ‘You and your sister. Look lively, we ’aven’t got all day.’

Peter frowned, but did as he was told. Daisy was looking fearfully at the woman as she climbed down off the stage. It was apparent that she didn’t much like what she saw and Peter felt the same way about it. There was something in the woman’s manner that spoke of a reluctance to be here, as though she had more important things to attend to, and the way she was so insistent on having Daisy felt a bit sinister. But she made a clumsy attempt at jollity and stepped closer, baring her teeth in an unconvincing grin. ‘Now then,’ she said, ‘we’ll be great friends, won’t we? What are your names?’

‘I’m Peter. And this is Daisy.’

‘Daisy! What a lovely name. You’ll make a perfect companion for a young girl around your age.’ She barely glanced at Peter. ‘Now, we’ll go and do the paperwork, shall we? I expect you two are anxious to get some home-cooked food inside ye.’

The woman stepped over to Mrs Halshaw and started to give her details.

Daisy looked up at Peter crossly. ‘She talks funny,’ she said.

‘It’s just an accent,’ Peter assured her. ‘Shush a minute.’ He edged a little closer, enough to overhear that the woman’s name was Mrs Beesley and that she was the housekeeper to a Mr Alfred Sheldon of Sheldon Grange. She answered Mrs Halshaw’s questions brusquely as though she resented having to bother with such silly details.

Just at that moment, Mr Griffiths came over to speak to Peter and Daisy, crouching down so his face was level with theirs. ‘It looks as though you two are fixed up, at least,’ he said. He glanced around the busy room and shook his head. ‘Only a few more to sort out and I can think about heading back myself,’ he added. He smiled reassuringly. ‘As soon as you get to your host home, ask for the address and mail the postcard to your parents. Then they’ll be able to drop you a line, to see how you’re getting on. You won’t let me down now, will you?’

‘No, sir,’ said Peter. ‘We’ll remember.’

Mr Griffiths reached out and shook his hand, then gave Daisy a reassuring pat on the shoulder. ‘I know it’s difficult,’ he murmured, ‘but we all have to do our bit for the war effort.’ He straightened up and headed back into the crowd.

Peter watched him go and, as he did, he got the strangest feeling that he would never see Mr Griffiths or his old school again. Then he started as a hand clamped down on his shoulder. He looked up into the stern features of Mrs Beesley.