Wartime Family by Lane Lizzie

Author:Lane, Lizzie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wing Commander Guy Hunter had been patient with Lizzie’s nervousness and her mumbled horror on seeing the legs sticking out from beneath the tarpaulin.

‘Here,’ he’d said, hugging her against his shoulder and giving her a clean handkerchief to cry into.

That, she decided, was the moment that she fell in love with him. All reason had fled. The staunch arguments for resistance became trivialities.

On Friday he told her to stand down.

‘I have to go to London on Monday,’ he said grimly. ‘And I know you could do with some rest and recreation. It was quite an ordeal’

She nodded. Her stomach rumbled. She’d been unable to eat anything the night before and this morning at breakfast was no better.

‘You look pale,’ he said. ‘You need some fresh air. We’re both due leave. Didn’t we agree that only yesterday?’

Standing straight, hands behind her back, she picked out the memories of the morning before the bombing and the sight of the dead girls.

‘Yes, sir. We did.’

‘Stop the “sir”, at least when we’re alone.’

‘Yes.’

‘Call me Guy – but only when no one else is around.’

She nodded. ‘Yes. I will.’

He flicked at some papers lying loose on his desk, gathering them up into a folder. ‘Now go and pack your things. We’re taking the slow boat to London via a little place called Shotley.’

Lizzie felt her face growing hot with embarrassment. A hotel? Separate rooms, she hoped.

Guy read her concern. ‘Don’t worry about what people might say. We’re staying in private accommodation. It’s got two cabins and two beds. You need a rest. We both do.’

She wasn’t in the mood for guessing games, so didn’t quiz him on their journey.

The salt smell of sea air and the screech of gulls sounded overhead. Lizzie’s spirits lifted. She began craning her neck for a glimpse of the sea. Ahead of her she could see flint-built cottages and wooden-framed houses lining a road leading to the beach.

‘Left here,’ he said suddenly.

They turned into a narrow lane where spring flowers speckled the grass verges with yellow, pink, blue and white.

‘And left again,’ he said.

They turned at a sign saying ‘Brian’s Boathouse’ painted in faded green on what remained of a small wooden dinghy.

‘Park over there.’

She followed where he pointed, chickens squawking as they scattered before the turning tyres.

‘This is it.’

She looked round for a hotel, but saw only a boat.

It was moored alongside a wooden jetty in an inlet on the River Orwell.

‘I bought it from a man who took it to Dunkirk,’ he explained, eyeing the boat with undisguised pride. ‘He decided he never wanted to go to sea again. You can’t blame him really. It couldn’t have been pleasant motoring into the shallows in those conditions. It was sheer luck he didn’t get blown out of the water.’

‘It’s lovely,’ said Lizzie. The truth was, she knew nothing about boats, but she studied it as though she did.

She judged it to be about forty feet long, made of wood and more generally termed a gentleman’s motor yacht. It had a wheel house standing proud of a teak deck.

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