The Complete Pratt Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand how you ever could.
    It was a hot night in August. The Battle of Britain was in full cry. Germany had occupied the Channel Isles. The invasion of mainland Britain was expected at any moment. Her Mother said parachutists had landed at Rotherham. In the morning, Ezra would join the war. They hadn’t failed him. They had failed Sid Lowson, who looked twice as fit as Ezra, but they hadn’t failed Ezra. This surprised Ada, but not Henry. It was common knowledge that his father had strangled a parrot. Henry was still rather vague about the war, but he knew that the object of it was to kill Germans, and supposed that his father must be going to take a pretty exalted role in the strangling section of the British army.
    Henry was frightened of his father, but he didn’t want him to go off to the war. For one thing, his mother didn’t want him to, and Henry loved his mother. For another thing, all change frightened him.
    For many weeks the atmosphere in the terrace house had been tense. Production of brawn, that local barometer of stress, had increased dramatically. Now the moment had come. The night was stifling. Her Mother had gone to bed early, making a point of leaving Ezra and Ada alone together on their last night, displaying her tact so coyly that it became tactlessness. Henry could hear her snores from the front bedroom. He slept in his parents’ room. There was barely room for the two beds. Normally he slept soundly, and didn’t hear them come to bed.
    That night it seemed to him that they would never come to bed. He couldn’t bear it alone any longer. He would go downstairs, and tell them that he couldn’t sleep.
    As he got to the top of the stairs, he could hear their low voices, the hum of grown-up night-talk, from which he was always excluded. He knew straight away that they were talking about him, and he decided that he must hear what they were saying.
    He crept carefully down the bare, narrow staircase. His legs were still too little to miss out a step. He trod softly on the seventh stair, which creaked, and on the ninth, which groaned.
    Their voices continued. They hadn’t heard him.
    He pressed himself against the wall and listened.
    ‘Take him to Kate’s,’ his father was saying. ‘Get him away from here.’
    ‘Become evacuees, does tha mean?’
    ‘Not evacuees, mother. It’s not evacuees, isn’t staying wi’ relations. I want to know he’s safe, mother. In front line, fighting Jerry, I want to know our kid’s safe.’
    Conflicting emotions gripped Henry. It was nice to know that you were talked about when you weren’t there. It provided reassuring evidence that you existed. It provided reassuring evidence that you were important to folk. But it was disturbing to hear your destination being discussed as if you were a parcel. It brought home to you how powerless you were. And it was worrying to learn of the prospect of massive change.
    ‘We won’t be any safer up there if there’s an invasion,’ she said.
    ‘Course you would,’ said Ezra. ‘And there won’t be one, any road.’
    ‘Mother reckons it’s imminent.’
    ‘That’s what I say. There won’t be one. There’ll be bombing, though.’
    ‘They won’t bomb civilians.’
    ‘We won’t. We’ve said we won’t. They will. They’re ruthless killers. Look at London.’
    ‘London’s London. They won’t bomb us.’
    ‘They’ll bomb steelworks, mother. They’ll bomb t’ canal and railway. They’ll try and cripple t’ munitions industry and t’ lines of communication. That’s what Reg Hammond reckons, any road. There’ll be stray bombs, Ada. There’s forced to be. It isn’t pin-point accuracy, isn’t aerial bombardment.’
    ‘Reg Hammond!’ she said. ‘Tha doesn’t want to believe all he says. Him at chippy reckons he’s a fifth columnist.’
    ‘Him at chippy! Portions he serves, I reckon he’s the fifth columnist. Go, Ada. It’s best.’
    ‘Will she want us?’
    ‘Course she will. She likes having