Page 17 of The Dark of the Moon
I hope you’re keeping all right. I know how heartsore you still must be, missing Teddy, but I know, too, you’ll be throwing yourself into your work and getting on with doing your bit to help end this war.
As you’ll have fathomed, I can’t say much about what I’m doing these days, suffice it to say my friend Lizzie is a reliable old bird and together we’re doing our bit as well.
That’s what keeps me going, the thought that one day it will be over, and you and I can be together at last. We do what we can to fight the good fight, don’t we, my love, hastening the day when there will be nothing to keep us apart, when we can wake each morning in each other’s arms, in a world where we are safe and at peace.
It will be all the sweeter for knowing we played our roles with every ounce of courage we have. The risks may be great. But the rewards are worth it. And never forget:
For the days without number
I’ll always be yours,
By the dark of the moon and
The light of the sun.
Ben
As I folded it and pushed it back into its envelope, a shape at the edge of the field caught my eye. It was a vixen, slinking alongthe hedgerow, carrying the limp corpse of a rabbit in her jaws. She paused, noticing me sitting there watching her, eyeing me with an inscrutable gaze. Then, from the shelter of the hawthorns, a pair of cubs appeared. She led them away into the shadows. Time for their supper too, I supposed, as I got to my feet and turned to walk back to the Webbs’, feeling a little calmer than I had done earlier.
Ben’s words brought him closer. He had no idea that they had arrived just when I needed them most. The sight of his letter sitting in the hall had made my resolve waver at first. How could I risk my life when it held the promise of spending my days with him? Then, when I’d read it, his words had spurred me on. Without knowing it, he’d said exactly the right thing at the right time again, giving me the courage to face whatever lay ahead.
But that night, as the foxes yipped and chattered somewhere out there in the darkness, I have to confess that I hardly slept a wink.
Finn
The day after we went to watch the film, Philly said she would like to go back to visit the military graves in the cemetery. She said she only had a few days left and there was something she wanted to do there before it was time for her to go home. She asked if there was a flower shop nearby and Mum said there was a stall in the covered market. Mum also said she would drive us this time and Philly said she would be very grateful for a lift because the walk was a bit much and she had been quite tired after we went the last time. I think her leg was hurting again, because she was using her flowery walking stick, even just to come downstairs for breakfast.
I decided I’d go into the covered market with them this time because it was still too early for the tourists and I didn’t need to worry about getting pushed or having my toes trodden on. I wore my ear defenders though, and I covered my nose when we walked past the fish stall near the entrance. The flower stall is in the middle of the big hall. It smells nicer. There was some lavender, so I stood close to it and sniffed it to take away the other odours.
Philly took a bit of time looking at everything on the stall, but then she saw a pot of white heather for sale, and she said it was exactly what she wanted. It cost 15 Euros, which is quite a lot of money, but she didn’t mind. The lady wanted to wrap it in a sheet of cellophane, but Philly said, ‘Non, merci.’ I carried it to thecemetery for her because she was using her stick and didn’t have both hands free. It was quite heavy.
We took the pot of heather over to where the war graves are, and Philly asked me to put it down on the gravel in front of the headstone forAn Airman. Then she and Mum stood there for a while, looking at the graves and the information board, which commemorates two commandos who were part of a raid using canoes that were launched from a submarine to attack the Germans on the evening of 12 December, 1942. The board says their names were Corporal GeorgeSheardRM and Marine DavidMoffatt. Their canoe sunk and they were both drowned. The canoe washed up on a beach and so did the body of David Moffatt, but no one knows what the Germans did with him. He might be buried somewhere on the island. George Sheard’s body was never found.
While they were looking at the board, I decided to do another rubbing. The Old Man was in the cemetery, as usual, and he’d stopped what he was doing and leaned on his rake to watch us as we put the pot of heather in front of the war graves. I walked over to look at the headstones where he was working. He’d already raked the gravel in that area and now he was setting pots of plastic flowers back upright on a big stone slab belonging toFamille Bertaud. Then he turned to pull daisies from the cracks of a smaller headstone next to it. I looked at the name, but it just saidInconnu. That meansUnknown. I wondered if maybe it could have been Marine David Moffatt, but then surely they would have known that because the information board said his body had been identified.
The old man’s hands are as lumpy as Philly’s. When he’d finished pulling out the daisies and moved on to the next grave, I knelt down and did a rubbing ofEugene Bertaud1916–2002 which was the most recent name on theFamille Bertaudslab. Then I did one ofInconnutoo. When I looked up, the Old Man was watching me, and I thought I might be in trouble. It happens a lot that I’m in trouble and I don’t know why. But instead he just nodded and went back to his raking. I folded up the pieces of paper and put them in my pocket.
Then Mum came over and said it was time to go because she and Philly had some more work to do, and the clock was ticking. There was no clock in the cemetery, but I think she meant her writing course is coming up quite soon and Philly won’t be staying with us much longer so there’s not much more time to get her story down.
Philly
A week after my meeting with Dilly Knox, I received a message saying that I was to be ready to travel the next day. I was to come in as usual for my morning shift but bring a small bag with the minimum of personal items I’d need for my trip. At 2 p.m., I should report to the Cottage.
Every day, after bolting down lunch in the dining room (the food was absolutely abysmal, so it wasn’t worth lingering over), I would usually snatch a few minutes sitting on the grass by the lake, raising my face to the May sunshine as I tried to soak up as much daylight as possible before returning to my desk. But that day, I went back to the Hut and collected my things, trying to keep down the gristly stew, boiled potatoes and watery cabbage I’d just consumed. My stomach was churning, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the dismal meal or my nerves that were making it all the worse.
Dilly greeted me, looking paler than ever. I realised then that he was unwell. He seemed to have visibly lost weight even in just a week. His eyes were sunken in his face, his skin papery and dry, stretched taut across the bones in his hand, which felt fragile when he extended it to shake mine. Previously, I’d put his pallor down to the strain of his job, coupled with the long hours he worked incarcerated behind his desk with the blackout blinds pulled down,the way the rest of us did. He would never sit by the lake, I’d supposed: his job was all-consuming.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘You have your things with you?’
I held up the overnight bag I’d packed. I knew I’d be away longer than just one day, but the message had stressed the need to bring only the bare essentials and I was used to travelling light after my stint as a ferry pilot. He nodded approvingly. ‘Very good. There’s not much space in the plane and there will be a few other bits of cargo to fit in.’
He showed me one of the items that would be coming with me, sitting in a wooden crate on the floor next to his desk. ‘You know what this is?’
I nodded. It was a small machine that looked very similar to the ‘Baby’ I’d once been responsible for minding. Now, I realised, I had been promoted from minding it to delivering it.
‘This version has a few minor adaptations,’ Dilly explained, ‘to help our friends with their work.’ Once he’d shown them to me, he closed the lid of the box and fastened it with a stout padlock, handing me the key. ‘Whatever happens, don’t let it fall into the hands of the enemy. It would be far better to destroy it than to allow that to happen. Do you understand?’
I nodded again, swallowing hard. Eating any lunch at all had definitely been a mistake.
