Keep the Home Fires Burning by S. Block

Author:S. Block [Block, S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 34804191
Publisher: Zaffre Publishing
Published: 2018-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 36

Having called an emergency general meeting of the WI to discuss the impact of nightly trekkers on their community, on the given evening Frances wanted only to remain at home, within earshot of the telephone and possible news about Noah. Since he had run away a day and a half earlier from the boarding school, nothing had been seen or heard of the child.

As soon as Claire had run into the village and told Frances of Noah’s disappearance, Frances had abandoned her plan to resurrect her friendship with Alison, and had run home to immediately telephone the school’s headmaster.

‘The first thing I want to say to you, Mrs Barden,’ Dr Nelms intoned, in a manner designed to calm the fears of any mother anxious about their son in his care, ‘is that there is no cause for alarm.’

‘I really find it difficult to understand how you can say that, Dr Nelms,’ Frances replied, astonished by his cavalier attitude in the face of what appeared to her to be a grave crisis.

‘I can assure you, boys abscond quite regularly.’

‘Odd how you didn’t mention it when Noah and I came to look at your school prior to his enrolment.’

‘Boys running away is a common occurrence in all boarding schools. While most absconders are new boys, it isn’t unknown for more established boys to return to school after a particularly successful summer or Christmas break with parents, find school life difficult by comparison and try and make their way back home.’

‘So you think Noah is on his way home.’

‘It’s quite likely. Though more likely that—’

Frances cut him off.

‘May I remind you, Headmaster, we are talking about a child of eight years old. How on earth can you speak so blithely of an eight-year-old finding his way across country during war, with bombs falling nightly, and – if we are to believe even a tenth of the propaganda the government would have us believe – a landscape positively teeming with German spies?’

‘I strongly believe you have no cause for alarm. I am reminded of a particularly ingenious boy who managed to run away from school on his second day, would you believe. He made his way to Switzerland, where he knew his parents had gone on holiday. The boy had no idea which part of Switzerland his parents were visiting, and was caught by a platform guard as he tried to sneak aboard a train at Zurich’s central station.’

Frances was in no mood to be eased from her current state of extreme anxiety by supposedly reassuring stories that attempted to turn Noah’s running away from a cause for concern into a common, almost whimsical occurrence she need not worry about.

‘With the greatest respect, Dr Nelms, every minute you’re wasting trying to reassure me that Noah’s disappearance fits an established, harmless pattern is another minute in which we have no idea where he might be, or when he might come to light.’

‘Mrs Barden, I can assure you— ’

‘No, Headmaster. I have little or no interest in your assurances.

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