Page 50 of The Island Girls

‘Where are they now – these others?’ asked Rose, glancing at Daisy, who was breathing deeply in sleep by this time.

‘That’s just the problem, Rose,’ hissed Peggy. ‘All three of us were in the water at one stage. One man is dead in the cockpit of the boat on the river, but I’ve no idea where —’ She stopped herself just in time. ‘Where the man I was following is now. He might be near the river, he could be injured, or worse. I need help to find him, Rose, and I also need to use the telephone at the pottery to make an urgent call,’ she said and then, as if the final act of asking for help had switched a valve, the tears began to fall, and Peggy sobbed.

Rose breathed hard and fast while she considered the options, looking about the inside of the Anderson shelter as if the answers were written on the tin walls.

‘We need Major Carter’s help,’ Rose said, getting up to push open the door and peering out of the shelter. ‘It doesn’t sound as though this is coming to much out here, Peggy. Come on, follow me. Daisy will be all right,’ she said, more to comfort herself as she left her heavily pregnant sister in the shelter.

‘We’ll have to stick to the lanes – the Home Guard boys won’t like us being out during a raid,’ said Rose as she led Peggy to the lane that ran between the terraced houses in Market Street and those behind.

Peggy was breathless as she ran to keep up with Rose, who had forgotten Peggy had no shoes, and was calling her plan as she ran.

‘We’ll go to the pottery and I’ll call Major Carter from there. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll raise the navy at Sandbanks, and the RAF at Hamworthy – or both. But the major will have more sway with them, you see? And you can make your call there too, whatever that’s about,’ explained Rose as they reached the open quay and she led Peggy around to a back door. Here she felt behind a loose brick where they apparently kept a spare key.

Within minutes, Rose had spoken to the major, who’d instructed them to wait there for his call.

Peggy picked up the receiver and gave the operator the Whitehall number that Fletcher had told her. It rang twice and she began to wonder if anyone would be manning the phone at this hour, when a prim voice answered. Peggy gave the coded message that meant she had found a spy and needed backup. The curt response was simply. ‘Very well, thank you for your call,’ and then the phone went dead, leaving Peggy perplexed.

Peggy went over to the window, looking out across the harbour. The decoy fires on Brownsea Island were lit, but all else was darkness, until she saw a flare go up from the lifeboat house. The night was calm, still no wind, and there couldn’t possibly be any ships in danger.

‘That’s odd, Rose,’ she said. ‘The lifeboat is going out – look, here they come now,’ she said as men ran from the darkness of surrounding streets and into the lifeboat house. Just a few minutes later, the boat was launched and headed out, not to the harbour entrance and out to sea, but to the inner harbour, westwards towards the Wareham River. The time was now nearing four in the morning and Peggy could see the first light of dawn creeping up over the harbour entrance in the east.

The telephone rang and Rose answered it at once, just as Peggy saw one of the small Royal Navy seaplanes taking off from Sandbanks and heading west too. Rose indicated the phone callwas for her, and when she answered, she heard the familiar voice of Fletcher.

‘Well done, Peggy,’ he said, after she’d checked Rose was out of earshot and briefly relayed the night’s events. ‘Major Carter has already had the lifeboat launched, and the navy are sending out a search plane. Patricia from the harbour master’s office is being called, and she will meet you at the launch. You’re to go back with her up the river to the site of this Dutch boat,’ Fletcher explained. ‘And have the major’s assistant wait for a phone call from me.’

‘Yes, sir. We’ll catch up to the lifeboat pretty fast – the oldThomas Kirk Wrightis not known for her speed, but can handle the shallow water better than our launch. They’ll be able to explore more of the inlets than we can,’ said Peggy, shifting into practical boatwoman mode.

Peggy ran down the front stairs and out the foyer doors, which Rose locked behind her. On the quay, there was still no sign of activity, but as she ran along to the launch, the all-clear sounded. That was something, at least, that they no longer had to worry about.

Patricia met Peggy at the launch, and they were as breathless as each other while Peggy explained where they were going. She untied her dad’s dinghy and tied it up to the quay, hoping it would still be there when they got back and knowing her dad would have her guts for garters if she lost it. They set off at high speed in the launch and were soon on the tail of the lifeboat and shouting instructions as to where exactly to find the Dutch boat.

When the lifeboat pulled alongside the Dutch boat, Peggy held the launch back, expecting at any moment to see them lift the dead body of a man aboard the lifeboat. But they did not. Peggy crept the launch forward and called out to ask what was going on. There was no response except to wait.

The lifeboat crew were searching the boat and some had jumped ashore and were looking around the riverbank.

‘What’s happening?’ called Peggy. ‘The body of the dead man is in the cockpit of that boat!’ she called.

‘No, it’s not, love. There’s blood on the sole ’ere, but no body. Are you sure he was dead?’ asked one of the crew, looking down into the base of the cockpit. Peggy thought back to a short time ago, when she was last here. She had seen a lifeless body. She had turned him over and seen it was Klaus. He had not moved. But had she checked his pulse, or listened for his breath? She couldn’t be sure now.

‘There was another man here as well – and we were all in the water at some stage,’ she said, wanting them to direct their search to Charlie. She knew now that he was innocent, but had some more interrogating of her own to do with him.

The search went on for several hours, with lifeboat men walking up and down the banks, swimming across the river, checking between the reeds. The seaplane swooped overhead again and again, checking the meadows beside the river.

And they found nothing. Not even the body of Klaus. As the sun began to rise on a fresh new day, Peggy’s hopes fell further with each passing moment.

26

POOLE – JUNE 1941

Peggy woke with that ever-present heavy feeling in her chest that she’d been carrying since the night of the fiasco on the Wareham River. For the last two days, she’d been aching for news, trying to go about normal business, and unable – prohibited by law – to share the details with her family. She’d been called in the night on official business for BOAC, she had told them, and could not tell them any more than that. The loss of her shoes, and the painful state of her feet, as well as the knock to her head and the fact she’d obviously spent considerable time in damp clothes and risked a chill were all of major concern to her mum, dad, and sister.

‘And where’s young Darrell when you need him?’ demanded her mother. ‘If a young man is worth his salt, he will be there for you when times are tough, Peggy.’

‘Mum, leave him be. He’s in the RAAF, for goodness’ sake, and has a lot more to think about than looking out for me or bringing me grapes when I’m at home with a cold,’ she’d said, doing her best to put her parents off the scent that something much more serious had been going on, and she’d not seenDarrell since their strong words on the doorstep a few nights ago.

‘A head cold, you call this? If you’re not in bed with pneumonia by tomorrow, I’ll be surprised,’ said Mrs Symonds, patting Peggy’s hand tenderly.

‘I’ll be fine, Mum. And he’ll be here soon. You’ll see,’ Peggy said with such brightness in her voice, nobody would have guessed her pain.

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