Page 40 of The Dark of the Moon
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And then we can think about what we’re going to cook for our supper. I don’t know about you, but all that sea air has given me quite an appetite.’ I knew that wasn’t true because of her only eating half her sandwich at lunchtime, so I deduced thatshe was trying to be cheerful and change the subject. That made me think she was probably feeling quite sad about giving up her search really.
I haven’t given up though. If I’m going to be a War Detective, perhaps my first successful case will be tracking down what happened to Ben. It will look good on my CV when I come to apply for the job.
So I went to my room and wrote out what we know so far. I thought if I treated it like working out a maths problem, I might be able to make some more progress towards finding a solution. Here’s what I wrote ...
Known factors:
We know Ben was captured. Last known to be in Poitiers early in 1944. He was in the prison there and he tried to escape. So they had to find somewhere safer to keep him.
Philly has looked in other possible places in that immediate area and there’s no record of him there.
Philly has also eliminated concentration camps from her search – she checked all the Red Cross records, and he’s not listed there.
Assumptions:
Ben was not executed at Poitiers. (The Resistance people would have found out.)
He was moved to a higher security prison.
During the war, it would have been easier for the Germans to move prisoners to the closest place.
Therefore, looking at the map of France, the highest security prisons within reach of Poitiers were the citadel in Saint-Martin-de-Ré and Fort Boyard.
Furthermore, we can eliminate Fort Boyard because the Germans didn’t use it as a prison during the war, they just used it for target practice.
The Île de Ré didn’t have a bridge joining it to the mainland back then, it could only be reached by a ferry, so it would have been a good place to bring prisoners if you wanted to make it hard for them to escape.
Hence, given assumptions (1), (2) and (3), and the factors listed above, we can hypothesise that Ben was brought to Saint-Martin.
And then I laminated it and went to tell Philly that I would like to cycle over to Saint-Martin tomorrow morning after all, to watch Dad and Iain and everyone else sail the bigger boat out of the harbour when they leave to go to Fort Boyard.
Philly
At first, I sleep deeply after the day out in the dinghy. Must have been all that sea air – Dan and Kendra are right! But I think, too, accepting that my search for Ben is over may have something to do with it.
I surface from the depths of my sleep in the wee small hours, though, to the sound of Finn jumping on the trampoline. I get out of bed and open the shutters. There he is, that beautiful boy in his pyjamas in the moonlight, leaping and bouncing. Freer than he ever can be in the unforgiving light of day. A ragged wisp of cloud half covers the face of the moon for a few moments, then dissolves, leaving the earth bathed in the soft, clear light, the moonbeams embracing the boy in a way that his loved ones cannot as he jumps and jumps. And in watching him, I feel a sort of weightlessness too, a shared sense of freedom, of fleeting liberation from the burden of getting through each day.
The moon is beginning to wane, relinquishing its fullness one sliver at a time in the inexorable cycle of light and dark. In its next iteration, it will be what is traditionally called a Hunter’s moon. We’re all said to be affected by that full moon. It’s not just werewolves that feel some primeval instinct stir deep within, there’s a wakefulness in every one of us – humans and animals alike – a restlessness making us long to prowl the earth on the nights whenforests and hills are bathed in its soft glow. But now my hunting days are over. I wonder whether I’ll sleep any better, or will that instinct to carry on seeking still keep flickering in some corner of my brain, whispering to me that I’ve been wrong to give up?
Letting go of my search has been a painful wrench, but perhaps a necessary one. If I can only come to terms with that, then maybe I can move on in my grief. That day in the cottage at Tangmere when they told me Ben was missing, something deep inside me became frozen. It’s stayed that way ever since, I’ve carried it everywhere with me, that cold hard lump of loss. I always thought searching for him would be the answer to shifting it, but now I see that in fact it was the opposite. My obsessive searching kept the loss enshrined, cocooned it away, not allowing the light and warmth and love my family and friends have given me down the years to melt it. Until now. Giving up, letting go, accepting I will never find him and bring him home. It’s taken a leap of faith – a trip in a little boat, with a child who sees the world through different eyes – to help me see that.
Finn’s frankness, his raw honesty, his clarity of thought (once you understand the logic behind it) have been liberating. We so-called normal adults dissemble, creating elaborate constructs – manners and rules and evasions – as a means of protecting ourselves and others. Sometimes those constructs work, but sometimes they become like clouds covering the moon, obscuring the pure light of truth. And even though the truth can be tough to face, it can also set us free.
As the first rays of daylight begin to filter into the garden, overpowering the more subtle moonlight, Finn’s jumping slows to a stop. Then he climbs off the trampoline and marches back inside, squaring his shoulders, ready to face yet another day in this strange world in which he lives, a world so filled with anxiety and perplexity, where truth is the only certainty he has.
Dan is delighted that Finn has agreed to cycle over to Saint-Martin to watch the others sail off on their expedition to Fort Boyard. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to join us on the boat?’ he says.
‘No thank you,’ Finn replies firmly, brooking no further discussion of the matter.
‘OK. Well, maybe next year you’ll feel more like it. The sailing camp’s been such a success that the others want to come back again.’
Finn makes no reply, he just carries on methodically eating the crustless triangle of toast his father’s made for him.
‘That’s great news, Dan,’ I say, filling the silence. ‘Fantastic. Kendra will be delighted to know that when she gets back tomorrow.’
He nods, then gets to his feet, gathering up car keys and a water bottle. ‘Well, time I got off and rounded up the troops. There’s a whole long list of checks we need to do this morning before we head out. I’ll see you at the harbour.’
‘See you there,’ I echo, draining my coffee cup. ‘Come on, Finn, we’d better get moving.’
