In Farleigh Field: A Novel of World War II

Alfie mumbled again, still half-drugged. They pressed themselves to the floor, being flung from side to side as the van drove around bends. But there were no more gunshots. Alfie roused himself and tried to sit up.

“Look,” Alfie said, awake now and wriggling toward the door. “The bullet made a hole in the door. That’s good. We can breathe fresh air!”

“Not while we’re being tossed around like this,” Phoebe said. “Golly, I hope they don’t shoot at us again. I feel sick, don’t you?”

“I feel bleedin’ terrible,” he muttered.

“Don’t swear,” Phoebe said, secretly glad that he was awake and talking to her.

The drive seemed to go on forever.

“Do you think he’s driving to the Channel to meet a German submarine?” Alfie asked.

“I don’t know. We don’t know if he’s the German spy, do we?”

“What else would he be?” Alfie said. “He only locked us in the van when he knew you’d overheard about the gun.”

Phoebe nodded. “Yes. He must be. I find it so hard to believe. He’s Jeremy. I’ve known him all my life. He’s one of us. How could he possibly behave this way?”

“The Germans must have forced him to work for them when he was in the prison camp.”

“No true Englishman could be forced to work for Germans,” Phoebe said hotly. “They’d rather die first.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t want to die now and is planning to drive us off a cliff,” Alfie said.

“Why do you always have to be so cheerful?” Phoebe snapped.

Then there was a crash as they hit something; the van rocked but didn’t slow. Then it screeched to a halt. A door slammed. Suddenly their door was wrenched open. Bright daylight flooded in, and fresh air. They sat up, gulping and blinking.

“You’re still alive,” Jeremy said, sounding more surprised and relieved than angry. He reached in and grabbed Phoebe by her hair, dragging her out of the van. “Come on. You’re coming with me.”

She screamed, blinking in the bright light, her legs wobbly and not wanting to support her as he set her on her feet. Alfie grabbed at her blouse, but Jeremy sent him sprawling, then dragged her forward. “Come on. Move. Faster.”

She looked around her as she was propelled forward. They were on the tarmac of an aerodrome.

“Help!” she screamed. Jeremy put a hand over her mouth as he forced her along.

Alfie scrambled to his feet. His head still swum around, and he staggered after Phoebe like a drunken man. Jeremy and Phoebe were heading for one of the Spitfires lined up beside the runway. With a supreme effort he ran at them, flinging himself at Jeremy and trying to rugby tackle his legs. “Let her go,” he shouted.

Jeremy turned and launched a vicious backhanded punch at him, sending him flying backward, and hitting the ground hard.

“Don’t you hurt Alfie, you horrid man,” Phoebe screamed as his hand had slipped from her mouth. She grabbed that hand and sank her teeth into the soft flesh of his palm. Jeremy let out a roar of pain and instinctively snatched his hand away. Phoebe reached out for Alfie. “Quick, run.”

Jeremy drew a pistol, raised it, then said, “What the hell. Go on, you little brats. Go. No one can stop me now, anyway.”

As the children ran toward a line of huts, they met an armoured car driving toward them. It screeched to a halt and airmen leaped out. “Two children,” one of them shouted. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“You must stop him,” Phoebe gasped, out of breath after their ordeal. “Jeremy Prescott. He kidnapped us. He’s a German spy.”

“Is that right?” the first airman was grinning. “Is this some kind of dare?”

“No. Of course not.” Phoebe glared at him. “I’m Lady Phoebe Sutton, Lord Westerham’s daughter, and we were kidnapped by Jeremy Prescott, and we think he was planning to shoot Winston Churchill. You can telephone Farleigh if you don’t believe me, but first you should try to stop Jeremy Prescott before he does something awful. He just ran toward those aeroplanes.”

Men’s shouts made them look up. A Spitfire was taxiing toward the runway.

“He’s stolen a plane.” An airman came running toward them. “He shot one of our blokes and took a Spitfire.”

The plane’s engine had become a roar. It raced down the runway and up into the sky.

“Now do you believe me?” Phoebe asked, triumphantly.



“You were very brave children,” the camp commander said when they had repeated their story for the sixth or seventh time and were seated in his office drinking cups of tea. “It’s all over now. It’s all right if you go ahead and cry, little lady.”

Phoebe frowned at him and stuck out her chin. “My father would not like me to cry in public. We’re supposed to set an example.” She stood up. “Do you think someone could telephone my parents and drive us home, please?”



It was when she arrived home that the tears finally came. Phoebe discovered that they hadn’t even missed her.

“We thought you were staying out of the way in the schoolroom because you didn’t want to get involved with the preparations this morning,” Lady Esme said. “And because you don’t like being polite to strangers at parties.”

“But didn’t the dogs come to get you?” Phoebe said, the distress in her voice rising at her mother’s calmness. “I was sure they would.”

Lady Westerham stared at her in horror. “The dogs did come,” she said. “They were barking and making an awful commotion right before the Churchills arrived. I had Soames take them inside and shut them up.” Then she suddenly did a most uncharacteristic thing and wrapped Phoebe into her arms. “Oh, my poor little girl,” she said. “You might have died.”

“I nearly did,” Phoebe said. “If Alfie hadn’t been jolly brave and tackled Jeremy, he might have flown with me to Germany. Or he might have killed me.” And then, without warning, she burst into tears.

When she had been calmed and sat beside her mother on the sofa, her father asked, “My dear child, why on earth didn’t you come to us if you thought that someone was planning to shoot the prime minister?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d believe me,” Phoebe said. “Besides, we’re supposed to report anything suspicious to authorities. It says so.”

“To the authorities?” Lord Westerham blustered. “That bloody idiot in the village wouldn’t know a spy if one leapt out and bit him.”

“Don’t swear in front of the children, Roddy,” Lady Westerham said.

“The child’s bloody well been kidnapped by a rotten traitor and might have died, and you’re worried about her hearing a swear word?” he demanded. “What we should be doing is sending her off to a good boarding school where she has less time on her hands.”

Phoebe glanced at Dido and grinned.

“How come she gets rewarded for taking stupid risks?” Dido said. “How about sending me off to finishing school? Or at the very least let me go and drive a lorry.”

“Over my dead body,” Lord Westerham said. “Which it probably would be if anyone put you behind the wheel.”