Blitzcat by Robert Westall

Author:Robert Westall [Westall, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

They began to overtake people. Mothers dragging crying children along. Men with bundles of bedding on their shoulders, or in prams. At first, the groups parted when they heard the rumble of the carts and Ollie’s warning shouts; parted without looking back, without looking up. They seemed oddly familiar; Ollie thought he had seen them before somewhere. But where? In a dream? Then it came to him. In the newsreels at the cinema. In Holland, France and Belgium. Refugees, fleeing.

Good God, he thought. It’s happening here, in England. Hitler’s doing it in England now. And his heart suddenly froze with fear.

Then a man stepped out into the road. ‘Give us a lift, mate? We can’t carry the kids any further . . .’ He was a well-dressed, well-spoken man, in a collar and tie, trilby hat and raincoat. A man used to giving orders, but he was pleading now, humble as a beggar.

Ollie looked around; a crowd of similar figures had gathered from nowhere.

He said, ‘The kids can have a ride. The rest of you will have to go on walking.’

The man seemed to change in a moment. He walked down the line of horses, shouting, ‘Kids can have a ride. The rest of you will have to walk,’ with real authority in his voice. People obeyed him. Kids were lifted up. Little rows of dirty faces stared down from the carts, their thumbs in their mouths, silent.

Then the man came back, obedient as a soldier, and reported, ‘All the kids are aboard. Where are you heading for?’

Off the top of his head, Ollie said, ‘We’ll make for Coleshill.’ He didn’t know why he said that except the kids piled on the carts made him think of the Sunday School outing, all those years ago, when he’d first taken a smit to his missus. Coleshill would be an awkward place to get to, from here. But all down the line of wagons, he heard voices crying our gladly, ‘We’re going to Coleshill; we’re heading for Coleshill; we’ll be all right in Coleshill, Coleshill, Coleshill, Coleshill,’ As if there were something magic in the name; as if Coleshill was the Promised Land, and he was Moses, leading the Children of Israel. Or, he thought, looking back at Coventry, as if I were Lot, leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, the Cities of the Plain.

Well, he thought, I’ve said Coleshill, so Coleshill it shall be. He took good old Trojan’s head-collar, and turned the cart to the left at the next crossroads. He felt better himself, to be going somewhere definite.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.