“Someone missed the train?” asked the stationmaster, touching the brim of his peaked cap.
“Yes—my friend’s son. He’s sixteen now, and I think he’s old enough to look after himself, but I still worry.”
“Coming in from Charing Cross, changing at Tonbridge was he?”
Maisie nodded. “He’ll probably be on the next one.”
He pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat, extended the chain to better see the dial. Maisie knew the stationmaster would have been aware of the correct time to the second but seemed to enjoy wielding his watch with a certain flourish. “The platforms are a bit packed on that line up from the coast toward—there are men coming back from France, you see, and the seats are taken until the next train comes through. Some of them are in a bit of a state—they’ve got the WVS out there handing tea in through the windows as the trains pull in so the lads can get something down them. I heard they’d handed out a few hundred sarnies in just a couple of hours this morning.”
“Knowing Tim he probably rolled up his sleeves and got stuck in to help,” said Maisie. “He can’t wait until he’s in uniform.”
“There’s many a lad who couldn’t wait the last time around—and then they couldn’t wait to get home again. Anyway, better get on. Like I said, he’ll most likely be on the one o’clock—due in at twenty-past.” He laughed. “But I reckon you know the timetable as well as I do!”
Maisie smiled. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right—I’ll be back in an hour.” She left the station and drove the five minutes back to Chelstone Manor.
“The stationmaster said the ‘up’ trains coming from the coast are holding up other services,” she said, explaining Tim’s absence to her stepmother. “The navy has been bringing home a good number of our soldiers, apparently—I’d heard that nonessential personnel were being sent back from France. And the trains were very unpredictable yesterday,” said Maisie. “Tim might well have missed the connection to Chelstone.”
Tim was not on the train at twenty past one, twenty past two, or twenty past three. In fact he did not arrive at Chelstone until long after Maisie had promised herself that she would place a telephone call to his mother. At half past six, on the train that should have arrived ten minutes earlier, Maisie felt a wave of relief wash over her as the tall, lanky lad clambered down from the third-class carriage, and seemed to lope toward her. Priscilla was right when she had observed some months earlier, “He’s at that ungainly age.”
“Tim, where have you been?” asked Maisie, trying to keep the mixture of relief and irritation out of her voice.
Priscilla’s son leaned down to kiss her on both cheeks. “I tried to telephone, Tante Maisie, but it was rather chaotic at Tonbridge.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Does my mother know I’m late? She’s watching me like a hawk these days—and I’ll never hear the last of it.”
“Had you not been on this train, I would have telephoned her—and she would have harangued me for leaving it so late to do so. I would have deserved her ire, because I put it off time and again. But the stationmaster told me about the trains coming in from the coast causing timetable delays. And it took me a long time to get home last night for the same reason. Now then, let’s get you back to the house—your bed’s made up in the conservatory. You’re the only person I know who can sleep with the sunshine beaming in first thing in the morning.”
“I love the conservatory—makes me feel as if I’m on a boat, hearing the wind outside and then the sunrise waking me up.”
It was later, over a late supper, that Priscilla’s son described the scene at Tonbridge station. “It looked as if everyone in the town was out there to help. There were women making sandwiches, brewing tea—and the men were helping to wash up the cups as the soldiers handed them back out of the train windows. I don’t know how they’d heard about it, and mustered all that help—I asked a guard and he said that as some of the earlier trains stopped at the station, soldiers were leaning out and asking for water, so word went round and people started coming in with whatever they had to contribute. I’m telling you, Tante Maisie, the men looked terrible—many of them were covered in mud, and a lot were bandaged up. I left my kit bag with a guard and just got stuck in to help—handing out food and water, bringing back cups. I asked one soldier—he was only about my age . . . well, a bit older, about eighteen, nineteen, more Tom’s age—and he said he was lucky to get on a ship. He told me there are thousands of them, thousands of men trying to get to the coast and waiting to get off. The navy’s in there, sending over ships, but the Germans are bombing them, coming in with their Stukas. The soldiers I spoke to think they’ll all perish there.” He was silent for a moment, and stared out of the window into the peppery darkness of late May. “Some of them were moaning that our RAF were flying right over, and then someone else pointed out that they were going deeper into France to try to slow down the German advance to give more of our men the chance to escape. Then another came back at him and said the RAF were going after the Messerschmitts over the Channel, trying to push them back. It’s a devil of a fight—and there are our soldiers, completely stranded. It’s terrible. They said they had no idea how the navy would be able to get them back to England—they’ll be left there, like sitting ducks.”
Maisie stood up, came to her godson’s side and put her arm around his shoulders. “War is terrible, Tim—and you are so young to have to learn just how terrible it is.”
“You know, Tante Maisie—we haven’t heard from Tom for over a week. Mother is much too calm, but she’s also snappy.”
“I know—but she knows how she is too, which is why she was keen for you to come down to Chelstone. She understands only too well what worry can do to her, so allow her some latitude. And you can cheer up Anna—she’s come down with measles, though she’s on the mend.”
“I remember measles—it was horrible. Poor Anna.”
“Now then, Tim—time for us all to go to bed. And your mother says you have work to do for your final school exams.”
“Pointless work—pointless when you know what’s going on over there.”
“It seems like that at the moment. But humor your mother—and your father. They have enough to worry about.”
Tim pushed back his chair and began to help Maisie clear the plates. As they moved to the kitchen, he spoke again.
“Tante Maisie. You know you said I was too young to learn how terrible war is? Well, I’m sixteen—how old were you, when you went to France?”
Maisie sighed. “I was seventeen, Tim. Your mother was a bit older than me, but no more prepared for what we encountered.”
The boy nodded, though Maisie thought she saw his eyes redden, and he looked down, as if to avoid her gaze. “Tom will probably telephone tomorrow. Friday is usually his day, and he missed it.” He turned, picked up his kit bag from the kitchen floor where he had dropped it as they’d entered, and made his way toward the conservatory. He did not look back, but called over his shoulder, “Good night, Tante Maisie.”